Systems and methods for updating a priority of a media asset using a continuous listening device

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are described herein for automatically changing the priority of a media asset using a continuous listening device. The system may receive an audio clip of a conversation a user, and then determine whether that conversation relates to any of the programs recorded or scheduled to be recorded on a storage device associated with the user. In response to determining that the media asset does relate to one of the programs recorded or scheduled to be recorded on the storage device, a user profile may be consulted to determine past instances of the user discussing the media asset, and, if a measure of the total number of instances the user discussed the media asset meets a threshold measure, the priority of the media asset may be updated.

BACKGROUND

It has become increasingly common for modern consumers to own personalelectronic devices incorporating voice recognition technology. Many ofthese electronic devices have begun to incorporate continuous listeningmodes, in which these devices are always listening for keywords ortrigger phrases to activate natural language understanding processes.While this allows for users to issue verbal commands to the electronicdevices to update various settings, it may still be cumbersome to theuser to issue specific commands to the device. For example, as a usergoes throughout his or her day, he or she may have conversationsregarding media assets stored/scheduled to be recorded on the homepersonal video recorder. A user may not think, or it may be sociallyunacceptable, to issue a specific command to their electronic device, inthe middle of such a conversation, to ensure that these media assets areaccessible to the user. Ultimately, this may lead to important programsbeing deleted or not recorded at all, and in turn frustrate the user.

SUMMARY

Accordingly, systems and methods are described herein for automaticallychanging the priority of a media asset using a continuous listeningdevice. For example, using a continuous listening device, or multiplecontinuous listening devices, to determine how frequently, how manytimes, or how positively a user discusses a media asset to determinewhat priority said media asset should be assigned alleviates a lot ofeffort on the part of the user to maintain an accurate list of programsthat are important to him or her.

For example, the system may receive an audio clip of a conversation of auser, and then determine whether that conversation relates to any of theprograms recorded or scheduled to be recorded on a storage deviceassociated with the user. For example, if the user says “I love TyrionLannister,” the system may determine that the user was discussing atopic related to a media asset (e.g., episode 9 of season 2 of “Game orThrones,” entitled “Blackwater”) by comparing a keyword associated withthe media asset (e.g., “Tyrion”) to the text of the audio (e.g., thethird word “Tyrion”), and determining that there was a match. Inresponse, a user profile may be consulted to determine past instances ofthe user discussing “Blackwater,” and if the frequency, number ofinstances, or other measure of the total number of instances the userdiscusses “Blackwater” meets a threshold, the priority of “Blackwater”may be updated. In this way, an importance of the media asset, and thuswhat priority it should be given, is determined from how often the userdiscusses the program, circumventing the need for the user to manuallyupdate the priority of all of the media assets stored on his or herpersonal recording device.

These systems and methods may be implemented by a media guidanceapplication (e.g., executed by user equipment associated with the user)that may receive an audio clip of a conversation of a user from acontinuous listening device in a passive listening state. The mediaguidance application may use a natural language understanding process toconvert this audio clip into text (e.g., to the text “I love TyrionLannister.”). The media guidance application may determine a pluralityof keywords associated with a media asset stored or scheduled to bestored (e.g., episode 9 of season 2 of “Game or Thrones,” entitled“Blackwater”) and compare the text translation of the audio clip to theplurality of keywords to determine that at least one of the words in thetext matches one of the plurality of keywords (e.g., one keyword may be“Tyrion,” which matches the third word of the text). Based ondetermining this match, indicating that the user was discussing“Blackwater” or a related subject, the media guidance application mayupdate a priority of the first media asset.

In some aspects, a media guidance application may receive, from acontinuous listening device, an audio clip of an utterance of a user.The audio clip may have been recorded while the continuous listeningdevice was in a passive listening state. For example, the user may behaving a conversation with a friend in which the user says “I loveTyrion Lannister,” and the media guidance application may receive anaudio clip of the conversation for processing, despite the continuouslistening device not receiving a specific prompt to process a command.As used herein, a “continuous listening device” is a device that may,when powered on, be constantly monitoring audio without a user having toprompt (e.g., by pressing a button) the device to prepare for inputcommands. For example, a continuous listening device may be constantlymonitoring audio for a keyword or prompt (e.g., “Hello Assistant”) toactivate an active listening state or may be constantly monitoring andprocessing all audio in a passive listening state. As used herein, a“passive listening state” is defined as a mode of operation of acontinuous listening device in which the continuous listening devicecontinues to temporarily or persistently record audio, but in which theuser has not otherwise prompted the continuous listening device toprepare to receive instructions. In the passive state, the continuouslistening device processes all audio input, as opposed to an activelistening state, where audio is only processed in response to a keywordor prompt. In some embodiments, the continuous listening device storesaudio received in a circular buffer that stores audio for apredetermined listening length. For example, the continuous listeningdevice may store five minutes of audio, where the earliest audioinformation is deleted as new audio is recorded. In some embodiments,all audio is persistently stored, and may be deleted using routinehousekeeping operations or manually by a user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, based onreceiving the audio clip, input the audio clip into a natural languageunderstanding process. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may access a subprocess, stored in memory, that convertsspeech in audio to text, and may input the audio clip into thesubprocess after accessing the subprocess from memory. In otherembodiments, the media guidance application may transmit the audio clipto a remote server that converts the speech in the audio clip to text.In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive, as anoutput of the natural language process, a data structure containing afirst plurality of words. For example, the data structure may containthe words “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and “Lannister” or may be a singlestring with the text “I love Tyrion Lannister.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve, frommemory, a data structure indicating a first media asset currently storedor scheduled to be stored on a storage device associated with the user.For example, the media guidance application may query the memory for anydata structure indicating a media asset stored or scheduled to be storedon the storage device. In response, the media guidance application mayreceive a data structure indicating that the media asset “Blackwater” isalready stored on the storage device. Alternatively, the data structuremay indicate that “Blackwater” is scheduled to be stored on the storagedevice. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may extract,from the data structure indicating the first media asset, an indicationof the first media asset. For example, the media guidance applicationmay extract, by executing an SQL script utilizing the declarative“Select” command, an indication of “Blackwater” from the data structureindicating “Blackwater” is currently stored or scheduled to be stored onthe storage device associated with the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may transmit, basedon extracting the indication of the first media asset, to a database, adata packet containing a query for a plurality of keywords associatedwith the first media asset. For example, the media guidance applicationmay transmit the title “Blackwater” to the server, with a request forkeywords associated with “Blackwater.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive, basedon transmitting the data packet containing the query to the database, adata packet containing the plurality of keywords associated with thefirst media asset. For example, the media guidance application maycontain a data packet containing the words “Blackwater,” “Wildfire,”“Stannis,” “Baratheon,” “Joffry,” “Tyrion,” “Tywin,” “Lannister,”“Kings,” and “Landing.” Alternatively or additionally, the data packetmay contain a summary of “Blackwater” or any other textual descriptionof “Blackwater.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayextract, from the data packet, the plurality of keywords associated withthe first media asset. For example, the media guidance application mayextract, by executing an SQL script utilizing the declarative “Select”command, from the data packet, the keywords “Blackwater,” “Wildfire,”“Stannis,” “Baratheon,” “Joffry,” “Tyrion,” “Tywin,” “Lannister,”“Kings,” and “Landing,” which are all associated with “Blackwater.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thefirst plurality of words to the plurality of keywords associated withthe first media asset to determine whether there is a match between thefirst plurality of words and the plurality of keywords. For example, themedia guidance application may compare “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and“Lannister” with the keywords “Blackwater,” “Wildfire,” “Stannis,”“Baratheon,” “Joffry,” “Tyrion,” “Tywin,” “Lannister,” “Kings,” and“Landing.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine that this is a match by determining whether at least one ofthe first plurality of words matches at least one of the plurality ofkeywords. For example, the media guidance application may search theplurality of keywords to determine if any match with “I,” “love,”“Tyrion,” and “Lannister.” The media guidance application may determinethat “Tyrion” and “Lannister,” as contained in the first plurality ofwords, match the same words in the plurality of keywords. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may determine that the matchindicates that the user was discussing the first media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine, based ondetermining that “Tyrion” and “Lannister” are contained in both thefirst plurality of words and the plurality of keywords, that the userwas discussing “Blackwater.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, based ondetermining that there is a match, store, in a user profile associatedwith the user, a first indication that the user was discussing the firstmedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may store anindication of “Blackwater” in a data structure indicating that the userwas discussing “Blackwater.” In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may also store, in the data structure, an indication of thetime at which the audio clip was recorded.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, in order todetermine which of a plurality of users spoke in the audio clip and thusaccess the correct user profile, compare the audio clip to a pluralityof audio signatures in an audio signature database. The audio signaturedatabase may associate each of the plurality of audio signatures with arespective user of the plurality of users. For example, the audiosignature database may include an entry for all the members of ahousehold, such as the son, the daughter, the mom, and the dad. Themedia guidance application may have previously gathered test phrases inorder to develop the audio signature for each of the members of thehousehold. The media guidance application may compare the audio clip,and particular characteristics thereof, to the audio signatures todetermine whether the son, the daughter, the mom, or the dad spoke inthe audio clip.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine, basedon comparing the audio clip to the plurality of audio signatures, thatthe user spoke in the audio clip. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the audio clip most closely matches theaudio signature of the daughter, and therefore determine that thedaughter spoke in the audio clip. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application may access the user profile associated with theuser based on determining that the user spoke in the audio clip. Forexample, the media guidance application may access the user profileassociated with the daughter based on determining that the daughterspoke in the audio clip. The media guidance application may thus storethe indication that the user was discussing “Blackwater” in the userprofile associated with the daughter.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may search the userprofile associated with the user for indications that the user wasdiscussing the first media asset. In some embodiments, in order tosearch for the indication that the user was discussing the first mediaasset, the media guidance application may retrieve a plurality of datastructures, each data structure representing a respective indication ofa plurality of indication that the user was discussing a respectivemedia asset of a plurality of media assets. In some embodiments, themedia guidance application may access a field of each of the pluralityof data structures indicating the respective media asset of theplurality of media assets to determine which of the plurality of datastructures represent an indication that the user was discussing themedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat there are a total of five indications that the daughter wasdiscussing “Blackwater” in the user profile associated with thedaughter. In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayretrieve, from the user profile, at least one indication that the userwas discussing the first media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may retrieve all five of the data structures representingthe five indications that the user was discussing “Blackwater.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine that ameasure of a total number of indications that the user was discussingthe first media assets meets a threshold measure. The total number ofindications includes the at least one indication that the user wasdiscussing the first media asset and the first indication that the userwas discussing the first media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine, based on retrieving the five indications thatthe user was discussing “Blackwater” and based on determining that theuser was discussing the “Blackwater” in the audio clip, that the measureof the total number of indications that the user discussed “Blackwater”is six times.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine themeasure by determining a frequency of the user discussing the firstmedia asset, a total number of discussions about the first media asset,or a difference or ratio between how many positive conversations theuser has about the first media asset and how many negative conversationsthe user has about the first media asset. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application may determine a frequency that the user discussesthe first media asset. The media guidance application may extract, fromthe at least one indication retrieved from the user profile, a firsttime stamp. In some embodiments, the each of the at least one indicationmay comprise a respective time stamp corresponding to a time at whichthe user discussed the first media asset. For example, the first timestamp may indicate that the user discussed “Blackwater” at 5:00 PM onMay 28, 2012.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may calculate anamount of time between a first time corresponding to the first timestamp and a second time. The second time may correspond to a time atwhich the audio clip was recorded. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application may determine the second time by receiving, fromthe continuous listening device, an indication of when the audio clipwas recorded. For example, the second time may be 5:00 PM on May 30,2012. The media guidance application may subtract 5:00 PM on May 28,2012 from 5:00 PM on May 30, 2012 to determine that the amount of timebetween the first time and the second time is two days.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thefirst time and the second time to the plurality of time stamps todetermine an amount of time stamps corresponding to times between thefirst time and the second time. For example, the remaining fourindications that the user discussed the first media asset may haveoccurred at 1:00 PM on May 28, 2012, 2:00 PM on May 29, 2012, 2:30 PM onMay 29, 2012, and 3:00 PM on May 30, 2012. The media guidanceapplication may compare each of these times to 5:00 PM on May 28, 2012and 5:00 PM on May 30, 2012 to determine that three of the remainingfour indications that the user discussed “Blackwater” indicate that theuser discussed “Blackwater” between the first time and the second time.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may calculate, basedon the amount of time stamps and the amount of time, the frequency. Forexample, the media guidance application may divide a total of fiveindications occurring between 5:00 PM on May 28, 2012 and 5:00 PM on May30, 2012 by two days to determine that the frequency is 2.5 discussionsper day.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine themeasure by determining a difference between how many positiveconversations the user has about the first media asset and how manynegative conversations the user has about the first media asset. To doso, in some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine acontext of the audio clip. The context of the audio clip may indicatewhether the user was speaking positively or negatively about the firstmedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat “I love Tyrion Lannister” indicates that the user was talkingpositively about “Blackwater.” However, the media guidance applicationmay also determine that the user was speaking negatively about the firstmedia asset. For example, if the user had said “I dislike the wildfirestoryline,” while the user may have been discussing “Blackwater” (as“wildfire” matches with one of the plurality of keywords associated with“Blackwater”), the media guidance application may determine that thisaudio clip indicates that the user was talking negatively about“Blackwater.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayassociate, with the first indication, an indication of the negativecontext. For example, the media guidance application may create a datastructure that contains the indication that the user discussed“Blackwater” and include, in the data structure, an indication that thediscussion was a negative context.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thecontext of the audio clip by comparing the data structure containing thefirst plurality of words to a negative word database. The negative worddatabase comprises at least one data structure indicating negatingwords. For example, the media guidance application may compare the firstplurality of words (e.g., in this case, “I,” “dislike,” “the,”“wildfire,” “storyline”) to the negative word database. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may determine that at leastone word of the first plurality of words is contained in the negativeword database. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat the word “dislike” may be contained in the negative word database.In some embodiments, the media guidance application may associate theindication of a negative context based on determining that at least oneword of the first plurality of words is contained in the negative worddatabase. For example, based on determining that the word “dislike” iscontained in the negative word database, the media guidance applicationmay associate a negative context with the indication that the userdiscussed “Blackwater” (i.e., when the user said “I dislike the wildfirestoryline”).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thecontext of the audio clip by comparing the audio clip to a tone databaseto determine a tone of the audio clip. The tone of the audio clip is anon-etymological indication of whether the user is speaking positivelyor negatively about the first media asset. For example, the user may,instead of saying “I dislike the wildfire storyline,” have simply said,“Oh, Game of Thrones,” but with a negative tone. In some embodiments,the media guidance application may determine that the tone of the audioclip is a negative tone based on comparing the audio clip, andcharacteristics thereof, to the tone database. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that the audio clip features slower,more deliberate words, and may cross-reference this with the tonedatabase to determine that the tone of the audio clip is a negativetone. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may associate,with the first indication, the indication of the negative context basedon determining that the tone of the audio clip is a negative tone. Forexample, based on determining that the tone of the audio clip is anegative tone, the media guidance application may associate a negativecontext with the indication that the user discussed “Blackwater” (i.e.,when the user said, “Oh, Game of Thrones”).

In some embodiments, as discussed, the media guidance application maydetermine the measure by determining a difference between a total numberof indications associated with the negative context and a total numberof indications associated with a positive context. The difference may begreater than zero if the total number of indications associated with thenegative context is less than the total number of indications associatedwith the positive context. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine that two out of the six indications that the user wasdiscussing “Blackwater” are associated with a negative context and thatthe remaining four out of the six indications that the user wasdiscussing “Blackwater” are associated with a positive context. Themedia guidance application may determine that the measure is thereforetwo, based on four of the indications being associated with a positivecontext minus the two indications associated with a negative context.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may include in thecalculation of the measure of the total number of indications that theuser was discussing the first media asset, discussions regarding thefirst media asset in which close relations to the user participated. Insome embodiments, the media guidance application may access arelationship graph. The relationship graph may indicate a link betweenthe user and a second user. For example, the relationship graph mayindicate a link between the daughter (i.e., the user) and the dad (i.e.,the second user). In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationmay search a user profile associated with the second user forindications that the second user was discussing the first media asset.For example, the media guidance application may search the user profileassociated with the dad to determine that the dad discussed “Blackwater”four times. In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayinclude the indications that the second user was discussing the firstmedia asset in the measure of the total number of indications. Forexample, the media guidance application may apply a weight of a fourthto the indications that the dad was discussing “Blackwater,” thereforeincreasing the measure of the total number of indications from sixindications to seven indications.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may include, in thecalculation of the measure of the total number of indications that theuser was discussing the first media asset, indications of all audioclips received from the continuous listening device. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may include only audio clipsthat contain recognized voices. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may receive, from the continuous listening device, a secondaudio clip of an utterance of a third user. For example, the mail manmay say “the neighborhood is going crazy about Stannis' loss in thatlast episode,” of which the media guidance application may receive anaudio clip from the continuous listening device.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thesecond audio clip to the plurality of audio signatures in the audiosignature database to determine which of a plurality of users spoke inthe audio clip. This may be done in a similar manner as described abovein relation to accessing the correct user profile associated with theuser. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine,based on comparing the second audio clip to the plurality of audiosignatures, that the second audio clip does not match with any of theplurality of audio signatures. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the voice of the mail man in the secondaudio clip does not match with any of the audio signatures associatedwith the son, the daughter, the mom, or the dad. In some embodiments,the media guidance application may determine, based on determining thatthe second audio clip does not match with any of the plurality of audiosignatures, not to include indications that the third user (e.g., themail man) was discussing the first media asset in the measure of thetotal number of indications. For example, despite the fact that the mailman may have discussed “Blackwater” on twenty indications, because themail man is not associated with one of the plurality of audio signaturesin the audio signature database, these indications may not be includedin the measure of the total number of indication that the daughterdiscussed “Blackwater,” thereby keeping the measure at six indications.

As discussed, in some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine that a measure of a total number of indications that the userwas discussing the first media assets meets a threshold measure. Forexample, the threshold measure may be that the user discussed the mediaasset more than five times, that the user discussed the media asset morethan two times per day, or positively discussed the media asset at leastone more time than they negatively discussed the media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that the userdiscussed “Blackwater” six times, as discussed above, and this may meetthe threshold measure of the user discussing the media asset more thanfive times.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may update apriority, associated with recording, of the first media asset to a firstpriority at the storage device associated with the user. The firstpriority may in turn control deletion of the first media asset orcontrol whether the first media asset is recorded in the case ofconflict. For example, the media guidance application may update thepriority of “Blackwater” from “Nice to Have” to “Must Have” (i.e., thefirst priority) based on determining that the user discussed“Blackwater” six times, which meets the threshold measure of the userdiscussing the media asset more than five times. In some embodiments, ifthe measure is the difference between a total number of indicationsassociated with the negative context and a total number of indicationsassociated with a positive context, the media guidance application mayupdate the priority by increasing the priority to the first priority ifthe difference is greater than zero (e.g., is greater than the thresholdmeasure) and decreasing the priority to the first priority if thedifference is less than zero (e.g., is less than the threshold measure).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thethreshold measure by accessing a database of threshold measures. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may access, from memory, atable associating a plurality of threshold measures with a plurality ofpriorities. Each threshold measure of the plurality of thresholdmeasures is associated with a respective priority. For example, thetable may associate the threshold measure of the user discussing themedia asset more than five times with the priority of “Must Have,” wherethe table may associate the threshold measure of the user discussing themedia asset between two and four times with a priority of “Nice toHave.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe measure of the total number of indications that the user wasdiscussing the first media asset meets the threshold measure comprisescomparing the measure to the plurality of threshold measures todetermine the threshold measure that includes the measure. For example,the media guidance application may compare the measure that the userdiscussed “Blackwater” six times with the threshold measure of the userdiscussing the media asset more than five times, which includes themeasure, to determine the threshold measure. In some embodiments, themedia guidance application may update the priority by determining thepriority corresponding to the threshold measure, where the firstpriority is set to be the priority corresponding to the thresholdmeasure. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe first priority is “Must Have” because “Must Have” is associated withthe threshold measure that the user discussed “Blackwater” more thanfive times.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thethreshold measure based on an average of the number of times the userwatched other shows. In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationmay search the user profile of the user for indications that the userwas discussing a second media asset, and may search the user profile forindications that the user was discussing a third media asset. This maybe done in a similar manner as described above in relation to searchingthe user profile for indications that the user was discussing the firstmedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may search forindications that the user discussed the thirteenth episode of the fourthseason of the series “Breaking Bad,” entitled “Face Off” and forindications that the user discussed the eighth episode of the secondseason of “Bob's Burgers” entitled “Bad Tina.” In some embodiments, themedia guidance application may determine a second measure of a secondtotal number of indications that the user was discussing the secondmedia asset and determine a third measure of a third total number ofindications that the user was discussing the third media asset. This maybe done in a similar manner to determining a measure of a total numberof indications that the user was discussing the first media asset, asdiscussed above. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the second measure is that the user discussed “Face Off”eight times, and that the third measure is that the user discussed “BadTina” two times.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may calculate anaverage measure based on an average of the second measure and the thirdmeasure. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe average measure is an average of the eight times the user discussed“Face Off” and the two times the user discussed “Bad Tina,” which mayyield an average measure of five times the user discussed “Face Off” and“Bad Tina.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application maystore, in the user profile, a data structure associating the averagemeasure with the threshold measure. For example, the media guidanceapplication may associate the threshold measure with the average measureof five times the user discussed various media assets in a datastructure.

It should be noted the systems and/or methods described above may beapplied to, or used in accordance with, other systems, methods and/orapparatuses.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The above and other objects and advantages of the disclosure will beapparent upon consideration of the following detailed description, takenin conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like referencecharacters refer to like parts throughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative block diagram for changing a recordingpriority of a media asset using a continuous listening device, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of a graphical representation of adata structure associating a program with a recording status, priority,and a plurality of keywords, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a graphical representation of atable associating a plurality of threshold measures with a plurality ofpriorities, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 4 shows an illustrative example of a display screen for use inaccessing media content, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 5 shows another illustrative example of a display screen used inaccessing media content, in accordance with some embodiments of thedisclosure;

FIG. 6 is a block diagram of an illustrative user equipment device, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an illustrative media system, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for changing a recordingpriority of a media asset using a continuous listening device, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining whether toinclude an audio clip in a measure of how many times a user discussed amedia asset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining a thresholdmeasure, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for searching forindications that a user was discussing a media asset, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure; and

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for updating a priority ofa media asset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Systems and methods are described herein for automatically changing thepriority of a media asset using a continuous listening device. Forexample, using a continuous listening device, or multiple continuouslistening devices, to determine how frequently, how many times, or howpositively a user discusses a media asset to determine what prioritysaid media asset should be assigned alleviates a lot of effort on thepart of the user to maintain an accurate list of programs that areimportant to him or her.

For example, the system may receive an audio clip of a conversation of auser, and then determine whether that conversation relates to any of theprograms recorded or scheduled to be recorded on a storage deviceassociated with the user. For example, if the user says “I love TyrionLannister,” the system may determine that the user was discussing atopic related to a media asset (e.g., episode 9 of season 2 of “Game orThrones,” entitled “Blackwater”) by comparing a keyword associated withthe media asset (e.g., “Tyrion”) to the text of the audio (e.g., thethird word “Tyrion”), and determining that there was a match. Inresponse, a user profile may be consulted to determine past instances ofthe user discussing “Blackwater,” and if the frequency, number ofinstances, or other measure of the total number of instances the userdiscusses “Blackwater” meets a threshold, the priority of “Blackwater”may be updated. In this way, an importance of the media asset, and thuswhat priority it should be given, is determined from how often the userdiscusses the program, circumventing the need for the user to manuallyupdate the priority of all of their media assets stored on theirpersonal recording device.

These systems and methods may be implemented by a media guidanceapplication (e.g., executed by user equipment associated with the user),which may receive an audio clip of a conversation of a user from acontinuous listening device in a passive listening state. The mediaguidance application may use a natural language understanding process toconvert this audio clip into text (e.g., to the text “I love TyrionLannister.”). The media guidance application may determine a pluralityof keywords associated with a media asset stored or scheduled to bestored (e.g., episode 9 of season 2 of “Game or Thrones,” entitled“Blackwater”) and compare the text translation of the audio clip to theplurality of keywords to determine that at least one of the words in thetext match one of the plurality of keywords (e.g., one keyword may be“Tyrion,” which matches the third word of the text). Based ondetermining this match, indicating that the user was discussing“Blackwater” or a related subject, the media guidance application mayupdate a priority of the first media asset.

FIG. 1 shows an illustrative block diagram for changing a recordingpriority of a media asset using a continuous listening device, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, user202 may speak utterance 106 (i.e., “I love Tyrion Lannister!”) in aconversation with user 104. User 104 may reply with utterance 108 (i.e.,“I do too!”) Continuous listening device 110 may detect utterance 106and utterance 108. Detector 110 may be such as a camera, wearablecamera, wearable technology, microphone, intelligent personal assistantdevice (e.g., Alexa implemented on the Amazon Echo, Siri implemented onthe Apple iPhone, Google Assistant implemented on Google Home, orCortana implemented on a Microsoft Device), mobile device, or any othersuitable detector for detecting utterance 106 and utterance 108.Continuous listening device 110 may communicate with user device 114over communications link 112. Finally, user device 114 may generate fordisplay menus and other information on display 116.

In some embodiments, a media guidance application, which may beimplemented on user device 114, may receive, from continuous listeningdevice 110, an audio clip of utterance 106 from user 102. The audio clipof utterance 106 may have been recorded while the continuous listeningdevice 110 was in a passive listening state. For example, user 102 maybe having a conversation with user 104 in which user 102 says utterance106. The media guidance application implemented at least partially onuser device 114 may receive an audio clip of utterance 106 and utterance108 over communications link 112, despite continuous listening device110 not receiving a specific prompt to process a command. As usedherein, a “continuous listening device” is a device that may, whenpowered on, be constantly monitoring audio without a user having toprompt (e.g., by pressing a button) the device to prepare for inputcommands. For example, continuous listening device 110 may be constantlymonitoring audio for a keyword or prompt (e.g., “Hello Assistant”) toactivate an active listening state, or may be constantly monitoring andprocessing all audio in a passive listening state. As used herein, a“passive listening state” is defined as a mode of operation ofcontinuous listening device 110 in which the continuous listening device110 continues to temporarily or persistently record audio, but in whichthe user has not otherwise prompted continuous listening device 110 toprepare to receive instructions. In the passive state, continuouslistening device 110 processes all audio input, as opposed to an activelistening state, where audio is only processed in response to a keywordor prompt. In some embodiments, the continuous listening device storesaudio received in a circular buffer that stores audio for apredetermined listening length. For example, the continuous listeningdevice may store five minutes of audio, where the earliest audioinformation is deleted as new audio is recorded. In some embodiments,all audio is persistently stored, and may be deleted using routinehousekeeping operations or manually by a user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may, based on receiving the audio clip of utterance 106,input the audio clip into a natural language understanding process. Insome embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may access a subprocess, stored in memory of user device 114,that converts speech in audio to text, and may input the audio clip ofutterance 106 into the subprocess after accessing the subprocess fromthe memory of user device 114. In other embodiments, the media guidanceapplication implemented on user device 114 may transmit the audio clipof utterance 106 to a remote server that converts the speech in theaudio clip of utterance 106 to text. In some embodiments, the mediaguidance application implemented on user device 114 may receive, as anoutput of the natural language process, a data structure containing afirst plurality of words representing utterance 106. For example, thedata structure may contain the words “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and“Lannister” or may be a single string with the text “I love TyrionLannister.”

Referring now to FIG. 2, FIG. 2 shows an illustrative example of agraphical representation of a data structure associating a program witha recording status, priority, and a plurality of keywords, in accordancewith some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, data structure 202may include program information field 204, which may include programinformation 210, including the title of media asset 212. Data structure202 may additionally include status field 206, which may include statusinformation 214. Status information 214 may include recording status216, old priority 218, and new priority 220. Note that statusinformation 214 may include only one of old priority 218 and newpriority 220. New priority 220 may be determined as described below inrelation to FIG. 1 and in relation to FIG. 3. Data structure 202 mayfurther include keywords field 208, which may include keywords 222.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve, frommemory (e.g., memory of user device 114 of FIG. 1), data structure 202indicating media asset 212 currently stored or scheduled to be stored ona storage device (e.g., storage device of user device 114 of FIG. 1).For example, the media guidance application may query the memory for anydata structure indicating media assets stored or scheduled to be storedon the storage device. In response, the media guidance application mayreceive data structure 202 indicating media asset 212 and recordingstatus 216 (i.e., that media asset 212 is “recorded”). Alternatively,recording status 216 may indicate that “Blackwater” is scheduled to bestored on the storage device. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may extract, from data structure 202, an indication of themedia asset 212. For example, the media guidance application mayextract, by executing an SQL script utilizing the declarative “Select”command, an indication of media asset 212 from data structure 202indicating that media asset 212 has recording status 216.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application, which may beimplemented on user device 114 of FIG. 1, may transmit, based onextracting the indication of media asset 212 from data structure 202, toa database, a data packet containing a query for keywords 222 associatedwith media asset 212. For example, the media guidance application maytransmit the title of media asset 212 to the server, with a request forkeywords 222 associated with media asset 212. In other embodiments, themedia guidance application may access keywords field 208 of datastructure 202 from the memory to determine keywords 222.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may receive, basedon transmitting the data packet containing the query for keywords 222associated with media asset 212 to the database, a data packetcontaining keywords 222 associated with media asset 212. For example,the media guidance application may contain a data packet containingkeywords 222 (i.e., “Blackwater,” “Wildfire,” “Battle,” “Stannis,”“Baratheon,” “Tyrion,” “Joffry,” “Cersei,” “Tywin,” “Lannister,”“Kings,” “Landing,” “Red,” and “Keep”). Alternatively or additionally,the data packet or keywords field 208 may contain a summary of mediaasset 212 or any other textual description of media asset 212, which maybe parsed for keywords 222. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may extract, from the data packet, the keywords 222associated with media asset 212. For example, the media guidanceapplication may extract, by executing an SQL script utilizing thedeclarative “Select” command, from the data packet, keywords 222, whichare all associated with media asset 212.

Returning now to FIG. 1, in some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may compare the first plurality of words representingutterance 106 (i.e., “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and “Lannister”) to theplurality of keywords (e.g., keywords 222 of FIG. 2) associated with afirst media asset (e.g., media asset 212 of FIG. 2) to determine whetherthere is a match between the first plurality of words and the pluralityof keywords. For example, the media guidance application implemented onuser device 114 may compare “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and “Lannister” withthe keywords “Blackwater,” “Wildfire,” “Battle,” “Stannis,” “Baratheon,”“Tyrion,” “Joffry,” “Cersei,” “Tywin,” “Lannister,” “Kings,” “Landing,”“Red,” and “Keep.” In some embodiments, the media guidance applicationimplemented on user device 114 may determine that this is a match bydetermining whether at least one of the first plurality of wordsrepresenting utterance 106 matches at least one of the plurality ofkeywords. For example, the media guidance application implemented onuser device 114 may search the plurality of keywords representingutterance 106 to determine if any match with “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and“Lannister.” The media guidance application implemented on user device114 may determine that “Tyrion” and “Lannister,” as contained in thefirst plurality of words representing utterance 106 match the same wordsin the plurality of keywords. In some embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the match indicates that user 102 wasdiscussing the first media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine, based on determining that “Tyrion” and“Lannister” are contained in both the first plurality of wordsrepresenting utterance 106 and the plurality of keywords, that the userwas discussing “Blackwater” (i.e., media asset 212 of FIG. 2).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may identifymultiple programs or series with keywords that match the first pluralityof words representing utterance 106. For example, the media guidanceapplication may have recorded or scheduled to record, on user device114, multiple “Game of Thrones” episodes that all have “Tyrion” and“Lannister” as keywords. In these embodiments, the media guidanceapplication may gather additional audio clips of additional utterancesof user 102 and user 104 from continuous listening device 110 todetermine additional pluralities of words and compare these pluralitiesof words to keywords or summaries for the multiple programs to furthernarrow which of the multiple programs user 102 is discussing. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that “Blackwater,”“A Man Without Honor,” and “The Prince of Winterfell” are all recordedon user device 114, and may all have keywords associated therewith thatinclude “Tyrion” and “Lannister.” User 102 may proceed to say “His useof wildfire was amazing.” The media guidance application may determinethat only “Blackwater” has a keyword of “Wildfire” and thereforedetermine that the user was discussing “Blackwater” and not “A ManWithout Honor” or “the Prince of Winterfell” based on this second match.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may, based on determining that there is a match, store, in auser profile associated with user 102, a first indication that the userwas discussing the first media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may store an indication of “Blackwater” in a data structureindicating that user 106 was discussing “Blackwater.” In someembodiments, the media guidance application may also store, in the datastructure, an indication of the time at which the audio clip ofutterance 106 was recorded. The user profile may be stored locally atuser device 114 or remotely at a remote server.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may, in order to determine which of user 102 and user 104spoke in the audio clip of utterance 106 and thus access the correctuser profile, compare the audio clip of utterance 106 to a plurality ofaudio signatures in an audio signature database, which may be stored atuser device 114 or stored remotely at a remote server. The audiosignature database may associate each of the plurality of audiosignatures with a respective user of the plurality of users. Forexample, the audio signature database may include an entry for user 102and an entry for user 104. The media guidance application may havepreviously gathered test phrases in order to develop the audio signaturefor each of user 102 and user 104. The media guidance application maycompare the audio clip of utterance 106, and particular characteristicsthereof, to the audio signatures to determine whether user 102 or user104 spoke utterance 106.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may determine, based on comparing the audio clip of utterance106 to the plurality of audio signatures, that user 106 spoke in theaudio clip of utterance 106. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine that the audio clip of utterance 106 most closely matchesthe audio signature of user 102 using various probability systems, andtherefore determine that user 102 spoke in the audio clip of utterance106. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may access theuser profile associated with user 102 based on determining that user 102spoke in the audio clip of utterance 106. The media guidance applicationmay thus store the indication that user 102 was discussing “Blackwater”in the user profile associated with user 102.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may search the user profile associated with user 102 forindications that user 102 was discussing the first media asset. Moredetails on searching the user profile are presented below in relation toFIG. 11. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthere are a total of five indications user 102 was discussing“Blackwater” in the user profile associated with user 102. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may retrieve, from the userprofile, at least one indication that user 102 was discussing the firstmedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may retrieveall five of the data structures representing the five indications thatuser 102 was discussing “Blackwater.”

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may determine that a measure of a total number of indicationsthat user 102 was discussing the first media assets meets a thresholdmeasure. The total number of indications includes the at least oneindication that user 102 was discussing the first media asset and theindication that user 102 was discussing “Blackwater” in the audio clipof utterance 106. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine, based on retrieving the five indications that user 102 wasdiscussing “Blackwater” and based on determining that user 102 wasdiscussing “Blackwater” in the audio clip of utterance 106, that themeasure of the total number of indications that user 102 discussed“Blackwater” is six.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may include in the calculation of the measure of the totalnumber of indications that user 102 was discussing the first mediaasset, discussions regarding the first media asset in which closerelations (e.g., user 104) to the user participated. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may access a relationshipgraph. The relationship graph may indicate a link between user 102 anduser 104. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may searcha user profile associated with user 104 for indications that user 104was discussing the first media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may search the user profile associated with user 104 todetermine that user 104 discussed “Blackwater” four times. The mediaguidance application may include, in the four times, utterance 108 basedon receiving an audio clip of utterance 108. The media guidanceapplication may analyze the audio clip of utterance 108, in conjunctionwith utterance 106, to determine that user 104 was discussing the firstmedia asset (i.e., “Blackwater”).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may include theindications that user 104 was discussing the first media asset in themeasure of the total number of indications. For example, the mediaguidance application may apply a weight of a fourth to the indicationsthat user 104 was discussing “Blackwater,” therefore increasing themeasure of the total number of indications from six indications to sevenindications.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may include in the calculation of the measure of the totalnumber of indications that the user was discussing the first mediaasset, indications of all audio clips received from continuous listeningdevice 110. For example, the media guidance application may include anindication that user 104 was discussing the first media asset inutterance 108. In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayinclude only audio clips that contain recognized voices. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may receive, from continuouslistening device 110 over communications link 112, a second audio clipof utterance 108 of user 104. For example, user 104 may say “I do too”in utterance 108, of which the media guidance application may receive anaudio clip from continuous listening device 110.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may compare the second audio clip of utterance 104 to theplurality of audio signatures in the audio signature database todetermine which of a plurality of users spoke in the audio clip. Thismay be done in a similar manner as described above in relation toaccessing the correct user profile associated with user 102. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may determine, based oncomparing the second audio clip to the plurality of audio signatures,that the second audio clip of utterance 108 does not match with any ofthe plurality of audio signatures. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine that the voice of user 104 in the second audioclip of utterance 108 does not match with any of the audio signaturesassociated with user 102 and his family.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may, based ondetermining that the second audio clip of utterance 108 does not matchwith any of the plurality of audio signatures, not to includeindications that user 104 (e.g., the mail man) was discussing the firstmedia asset in the measure of the total number of indications. Forexample, despite the fact that user 104 may have discussed “Blackwater”on twenty indications, or discussed “Blackwater” in utterance 108,because user 104 is not associated with one of the plurality of audiosignatures in the audio signature database, these indications may not beincluded in the measure of the total number of indications that user 102discussed “Blackwater,” thereby keeping the measure at six indications.

As discussed, in some embodiments, the media guidance applicationimplemented on user device 114 may determine that a measure of a totalnumber of indications that user 102 was discussing the first mediaassets meets a threshold measure. For example, the threshold measure maybe that user 102 discussed the first media asset more than five times,that user 102 discussed the media asset more than two times per day, orpositively discussed the first media asset at least one more time thanthey negatively discussed the first media asset. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that user 102 discussed “Blackfire”six times, as discussed above, and this may meet the threshold measureof user 102 discussing the media asset more than five times.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application implemented on userdevice 114 may update a priority (e.g., old priority 218 of FIG. 2),associated with recording, of the first media asset to a first priority(e.g., new priority 220 of FIG. 2) at the storage device of user device114 associated with user 102. The first priority may in turn controldeletion of the first media asset or control whether the first mediaasset is recorded in the case of conflict. For example, the mediaguidance application implemented on user device 114 may update thepriority of “Blackwater” from “Nice to Have” to “Must Have” based ondetermining that user 102 discussed “Blackwater” six times, which meetsthe threshold measure of user 102 discussing the first media asset morethan five times. More details on determining the threshold measure andupdating the priority are presented below in relation to FIG. 3 and FIG.12.

FIG. 3 shows an illustrative example of a graphical representation of atable associating a plurality of threshold measures with a plurality ofpriorities, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Table302 may contain one or more types of threshold measures. For example,table 302 contains instances thresholds 304, frequency thresholds 306,positive-negative thresholds 308. Instances thresholds 304 indicatethreshold measures for how many distinct instances the user discussedthe program. Frequency thresholds 306 indicate threshold measures forhow many instances per unit time (e.g., per day) the user discussed theprogram. Finally, positive-negative thresholds 308 indicate a differencebetween the number of instances during which the user spoke positivelyabout the program and the number of instances the user spoke negativelyabout the program, where the difference is positive if the user spokepositively about the program in more instances than the user spokenegatively about the program.

Table 302 correlates these thresholds with recording priorities 310 anddeletion priorities 312. Recording priorities 310 may indicate theimportance of recording a program that is scheduled to be stored, anddeletion priorities may indicate the importance of maintaining a storedcopy of a program that is already stored, or may indicate in what ordersuch a copy should be deleted. Instances thresholds 304, frequencythresholds 306, and positive-negative thresholds 308 correlate torecording priorities 310 and deletion priorities 312 if they are in thesame row of table 302.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thethreshold measure, as discussed in relation to determining that themeasure of the number of indications exceeds the threshold measure inthe discussion of FIG. 1 above, by accessing a database of thresholdmeasures. In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayaccess, from memory (e.g., of user device 114 or of a remote server),table 302.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thatthe measure of the total number of indications that the user wasdiscussing the first media asset, as discussed in relation to FIG. 1,meets the threshold measure by comparing the measure to instancesthresholds 304, frequency thresholds 306, or positive-negativethresholds 308 to determine the threshold measure that includes themeasure. For example, the media guidance application may compare themeasure that the user discussed “Blackwater” six times with instancesthresholds 302 to determine the instance threshold of the userdiscussing the media asset between six and ten times, which includes themeasure of the user discussing the media asset six times, to determinethe threshold measure.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may update thepriority by determining which of the recording priorities 310 or thedeletion priorities 312 corresponds to the threshold measure of the userdiscussing the media asset between six and ten times, the third ofinstances thresholds 304. The first priority is set to be the recordingpriority of recording priorities 310 or deletion priority of deletionpriorities 312 that corresponds to the threshold measure of instancesthresholds 304. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the first priority is “Nice to Have” because “Nice toHave” is associated with the threshold measure of the user discussingthe media asset six to ten times of instances threshold 304.

The media guidance application may determine instances thresholds 304,frequency thresholds 306, and/or positive-negative thresholds 308 basedon an average of the number of times the user watched other shows. Insome embodiments, the media guidance application may search the userprofile of the user (e.g., user 102 of FIG. 1) for indications that theuser was discussing a second media asset, and may search the userprofile for indications that the user was discussing a third mediaasset. This may be done in a similar manner as described above inrelation to FIG. 1 and to searching the user profile for indicationsthat the user was discussing the first media asset, and which will bediscussed further below in relation to FIG. 11. For example, the mediaguidance application may search for indications that the user discussedthe thirteenth episode of the fourth season of the series “BreakingBad,” entitled “Face Off,” and for indications that the user discussedthe eighth episode of the second season of “Bob's Burgers” entitled “BadTina.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determinea second measure of a second total number of indications that the userwas discussing the second media asset and determine a third measure of athird total number of indications that the user was discussing the thirdmedia asset. This may be done in a similar manner to determining ameasure of a total number of indications that the user was discussingthe first media asset, as discussed above in relation to FIG. 1. Forexample, the media guidance application may determine that the secondmeasure is that the user discussed “Face Off” eight times, and that thethird measure is that the user discussed “Bad Tina” four times.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may calculate anaverage measure based on an average of the second measure and the thirdmeasure. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe average measure is an average of the eight times the user discussed“Face Off” and the two times the user discussed “Bad Tina,” which mayyield an average measure of six times the user discussed “Face Off” and“Bad Tina.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application maystore, in the user profile, table 302, associating the average measurewith the threshold measure. For example, the media guidance applicationmay associate the threshold measure with the average measure of sixtimes the user discussed various media assets in table 302. For example,the average measure may be the lower bound of the third of instancesthresholds 304, which may be correlated to the third of recordingpriorities 310 “Notify User of Conflict, if No Response: Record” andwith the third of deletion priorities 312 “Nice to Have.”

The media guidance application may further calculate a statisticaldeviation based on the second and third measures, and populate table 302based on the statistical deviation. For example, the first of recordingpriorities 310 and the first of deletion priorities 312 may becorrelated with a threshold measure of instances 304 of numbers greaterthan one deviation less than the average measure, the second ofrecording priorities 310 and the second of deletion priorities 312 maybe correlated with a threshold measure of instances 304 of numbersbetween one deviation and zero deviations less than the average measure,the third of recording priorities 310 and the third of deletionpriorities 312 may be correlated with a threshold measure of instances304 of numbers between zero deviations and one deviation above theaverage measure, and the fourth of recording priorities 310 and thefourth of deletion priorities 312 may be correlated with a thresholdmeasure of instances 304 of numbers greater than one deviation above theaverage measure. For example, in table 302, the average measure may be6, and the standard deviation may be 4. One of ordinary skill in the artmay understand that other statistical measures may be used to populatethe table, and that other association schemes may be used.

In order to determine which of frequency thresholds 306 the measuremeets, the media guidance application may determine the measure bydetermining a frequency of the user (e.g., user 102) discussing thefirst media asset (e.g., “Blackwater”). As such, in some embodiments,the media guidance application may determine a frequency that the userdiscusses the first media asset. The media guidance application mayextract, from the at least one indication retrieved from the userprofile, as described in relation to FIG. 1, a first time stamp. In someembodiments, the each of the at least one indication may comprise arespective time stamp corresponding to a time at which the userdiscussed the first media asset. For example, the first time stamp mayindicate that the user discussed “Blackwater” at 5:00 PM on May 28,2012.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may calculate anamount of time between a first time corresponding to the first timestamp and a second time. The second time may correspond to a time atwhich the audio clip (e.g., the audio clip of utterance 106) wasrecorded. In some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine the second time by receiving, from the continuous listeningdevice, an indication of when the audio clip was recorded. For example,the second time may be 5:00 PM on May 30, 2012. The media guidanceapplication may subtract 5:00 PM on May 28, 2012 from 5:00 PM on May 30,2012 to determine that the amount of time between the first time and thesecond time is two days.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thefirst time and the second time to the plurality of time stamps todetermine an amount of time stamps corresponding to times between thefirst time and the second time. For example, the remaining fourindications that the user discussed the first media asset may haveoccurred at 1:00 PM on May 28, 2012, 2:00 PM on May 29, 2012, 2:30 PM onMay 29, 2012, and 3:00 PM on May 30, 2012. The media guidanceapplication may compare each of these times to 5:00 PM on May 28, 2012and 5:00 PM on May 30, 2012 to determine that three of the remainingfour indications that the user discussed “Blackwater” indicate that theuser discussed “Blackwater” between the first time and the second time.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may calculate, basedon the amount of time stamps and the amount of time, the frequency. Forexample, the media guidance application may divide a total of fiveindications occurring between 5:00 PM on May 28, 2012 and 5:00 PM on May30, 2012 by two days to determine that the frequency is 2.5 discussionsper day. The media guidance application may compare the frequency of 2.5to frequency thresholds 306 to determine that the updated recordingpriority of recording priorities 310 is “Must Have,” which correlates tothe threshold measure of greater than two times per day of frequencythresholds 306.

In order to determine which of positive-negative thresholds 308 themeasure meets, in some embodiments, the media guidance application maydetermine the measure by determining a difference between how manypositive conversations the user has about the first media asset and howmany negative conversations the user has about the first media asset. Todo so, in some embodiments, the media guidance application (e.g.,implemented on user device 114 of FIG. 1) may determine a context of theaudio clip (e.g., the audio clip of utterance 106 of FIG. 1). Thecontext of the audio clip may indicate whether the user was speakingpositively or negatively about the first media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may determine that “I love Tyrion Lannister”indicates that the user was talking positively about “Blackwater.”However, the media guidance application may also determine that the userwas speaking negatively about the first media asset. For example, if theuser had said “I dislike the wildfire storyline,” while the user mayhave been discussing “Blackwater” (as “wildfire” matches with one of theplurality of keywords associated with “Blackwater,” as discussed inrelation to FIG. 1), the media guidance application may determine thatthis audio clip indicates that the user was talking negatively about“Blackwater.” In some embodiments, the media guidance application mayassociate, with the first indication, an indication of the negativecontext. For example, the media guidance application may create a datastructure that contains the indication that the user discussed“Blackwater” and include, in the data structure, an indication that thediscussion was a negative context.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thecontext of the audio clip by comparing the data structure containing thefirst plurality of words to a negative word database. The negative worddatabase comprises at least one data structure indicating negatingwords. For example, the media guidance application may compare the firstplurality of words (e.g., in this case, “I,” “dislike,” “the,”“wildfire,” “storyline”) to the negative word database. In someembodiments, the media guidance application may determine that at leastone word of the first plurality of words is contained in the negativeword database. For example, the media guidance application may determinethat the word “dislike” may be contained in the negative word database.In some embodiments, the media guidance application may associate theindication of a negative context based on determining that at least oneword of the first plurality of words is contained in the negative worddatabase. For example, based on determining that the word “dislike” iscontained in the negative word database, the media guidance applicationmay associate a negative context with the indication that the userdiscussed “Blackwater” (i.e., when the user said “I dislike the wildfirestoryline”).

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may determine thecontext of the audio clip by comparing the audio clip to a tone databaseto determine a tone of the audio clip. The tone of the audio clip is anon-etymological indication of whether the user is speaking positivelyor negatively about the first media asset. For example, the user may,instead of saying “I dislike the wildfire storyline,” have simply said,“Oh, Game of Thrones,” but with a negative tone. In some embodiments,the media guidance application may determine that the tone of the audioclip is a negative tone based on comparing the audio clip, andcharacteristics thereof, to the tone database. For example, the mediaguidance application may determine that the audio clip features slower,more deliberate words, and may cross-reference this with the tonedatabase to determine that the tone of the audio clip is a negativetone. In some embodiments, the media guidance application may associate,with the first indication, the indication of the negative context basedon determining that the tone of the audio clip is a negative tone. Forexample, based on determining that the tone of the audio clip is anegative tone, the media guidance application may associate a negativecontext with the indication that the user discussed “Blackwater” (i.e.,when the user said, “Oh, Game of Thrones”).

In some embodiments, as discussed, the media guidance application maydetermine the measure by determining a difference between a total numberof indications associated with the negative context and a total numberof indications associated with a positive context. The difference may begreater than zero if the total number of indications associated with thenegative context is less than the total number of indications associatedwith the positive context. For example, the media guidance applicationmay determine that two out of the six indications that the user wasdiscussing “Blackwater” are associated with a negative context and thatthe remaining four out of the six indications that the user wasdiscussing “Blackwater” are associated with a positive context. Themedia guidance application may determine that the measure is thereforetwo, based on four of the indications being associated with a positivecontext minus the two indications associated with a negative context.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application may compare thedifference to positive-negative thresholds 308 to determine that theupdated recording priority of recording priorities 310 is “Nice toHave,” which correlates to the threshold measure of between one and fiveof positive-negative thresholds 308.

In some embodiments, if the measure is the difference between a totalnumber of indications associated with the negative context and a totalnumber of indications associated with a positive context, the mediaguidance application may update the priority by increasing the priorityto the first priority if the difference is greater than zero (e.g., isgreater than the threshold measure) and decreasing the priority to thefirst priority if the difference is less than zero (e.g., is less thanthe threshold measure). Note that the media guidance application may usea single threshold, as opposed to table 302, for all comparisons betweenthe measure and the threshold measure. The media guidance applicationmay determine if the measure meets the single threshold, and the mediaguidance application may raise the priority by a single unit (e.g., from“Nice to Have” to “Must Have”). If the media guidance applicationdetermines that the measure does not meet the single threshold, thepriority may be lowered by a single unit (e.g., from “Notify User ofConflict, if No Response: Do Not Record” to “Do Not Record if Conflict.”

The amount of content available to users in any given content deliverysystem can be substantial. Consequently, many users desire a form ofmedia guidance through an interface that allows users to efficientlynavigate content selections and easily identify content that they maydesire. An application that provides such guidance is referred to hereinas an interactive media guidance application or, sometimes, a mediaguidance application or a guidance application.

Interactive media guidance applications may take various forms dependingon the content for which they provide guidance. One typical type ofmedia guidance application is an interactive television program guide.Interactive television program guides (sometimes referred to aselectronic program guides) are well-known guidance applications that,among other things, allow users to navigate among and locate many typesof content or media assets. Interactive media guidance applications maygenerate graphical user interface screens that enable a user to navigateamong, locate and select content. As referred to herein, the terms“media asset” and “content” should be understood to mean anelectronically consumable user asset, such as television programming, aswell as pay-per-view programs, on-demand programs (as in video-on-demand(VOD) systems), Internet content (e.g., streaming content, downloadablecontent, Webcasts, etc.), video clips, audio, content information,pictures, rotating images, documents, playlists, websites, articles,books, electronic books, blogs, chat sessions, social media,applications, games, and/or any other media or multimedia and/orcombination of the same. Guidance applications also allow users tonavigate among and locate content. As referred to herein, the term“multimedia” should be understood to mean content that utilizes at leasttwo different content forms described above, for example, text, audio,images, video, or interactivity content forms. Content may be recorded,played, displayed or accessed by user equipment devices, but can also bepart of a live performance.

The media guidance application and/or any instructions for performingany of the embodiments discussed herein may be encoded on computerreadable media. Computer readable media includes any media capable ofstoring data. The computer readable media may be transitory, including,but not limited to, propagating electrical or electromagnetic signals,or may be non-transitory including, but not limited to, volatile andnon-volatile computer memory or storage devices such as a hard disk,floppy disk, USB drive, DVD, CD, media cards, register memory, processorcaches, Random Access Memory (“RAM”), etc.

With the advent of the Internet, mobile computing, and high-speedwireless networks, users are accessing media on user equipment deviceson which they traditionally did not. As referred to herein, the phrase“user equipment device,” “user equipment,” “user device,” “electronicdevice,” “electronic equipment,” “media equipment device,” or “mediadevice” should be understood to mean any device for accessing thecontent described above, such as a television, a Smart TV, a set-topbox, an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) for handling satellitetelevision, a digital storage device, a digital media receiver (DMR), adigital media adapter (DMA), a streaming media device, a DVD player, aDVD recorder, a connected DVD, a local media server, a BLU-RAY player, aBLU-RAY recorder, a personal computer (PC), a laptop computer, a tabletcomputer, a WebTV box, a personal computer television (PC/TV), a PCmedia server, a PC media center, a hand-held computer, a stationarytelephone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, aportable video player, a portable music player, a portable gamingmachine, a smart phone, or any other television equipment, computingequipment, or wireless device, and/or combination of the same. In someembodiments, the user equipment device may have a front facing screenand a rear facing screen, multiple front screens, or multiple angledscreens. In some embodiments, the user equipment device may have a frontfacing camera and/or a rear facing camera. On these user equipmentdevices, users may be able to navigate among and locate the same contentavailable through a television. Consequently, media guidance may beavailable on these devices, as well. The guidance provided may be forcontent available only through a television, for content available onlythrough one or more of other types of user equipment devices, or forcontent available both through a television and one or more of the othertypes of user equipment devices. The media guidance applications may beprovided as on-line applications (i.e., provided on a web-site), or asstand-alone applications or clients on user equipment devices. Variousdevices and platforms that may implement media guidance applications aredescribed in more detail below.

One of the functions of the media guidance application is to providemedia guidance data to users. As referred to herein, the phrase “mediaguidance data” or “guidance data” should be understood to mean any datarelated to content or data used in operating the guidance application.For example, the guidance data may include program information, guidanceapplication settings, user preferences, user profile information, medialistings, media-related information (e.g., broadcast times, broadcastchannels, titles, descriptions, ratings information (e.g., parentalcontrol ratings, critic's ratings, etc.), genre or category information,actor information, logo data for broadcasters' or providers' logos,etc.), media format (e.g., standard definition, high definition, 3D,etc.), on-demand information, blogs, websites, and any other type ofguidance data that is helpful for a user to navigate among and locatedesired content selections.

FIGS. 4-5 show illustrative display screens that may be used to providemedia guidance data. The display screens shown in FIGS. 4-5 may beimplemented on any suitable user equipment device or platform. While thedisplays of FIGS. 4-5 are illustrated as full screen displays, they mayalso be fully or partially overlaid over content being displayed. A usermay indicate a desire to access content information by selecting aselectable option provided in a display screen (e.g., a menu option, alistings option, an icon, a hyperlink, etc.) or pressing a dedicatedbutton (e.g., a GUIDE button) on a remote control or other user inputinterface or device. In response to the user's indication, the mediaguidance application may provide a display screen with media guidancedata organized in one of several ways, such as by time and channel in agrid, by time, by channel, by source, by content type, by category(e.g., movies, sports, news, children, or other categories ofprogramming), or other predefined, user-defined, or other organizationcriteria.

FIG. 4 shows illustrative grid of a program listings display 400arranged by time and channel that also enables access to different typesof content in a single display. Display 400 may include grid 402 with:(1) a column of channel/content type identifiers 404, where eachchannel/content type identifier (which is a cell in the column)identifies a different channel or content type available; and (2) a rowof time identifiers 406, where each time identifier (which is a cell inthe row) identifies a time block of programming. Grid 402 also includescells of program listings, such as program listing 408, where eachlisting provides the title of the program provided on the listing'sassociated channel and time. With a user input device, a user can selectprogram listings by moving highlight region 410. Information relating tothe program listing selected by highlight region 410 may be provided inprogram information region 412. Region 412 may include, for example, theprogram title, the program description, the time the program is provided(if applicable), the channel the program is on (if applicable), theprogram's rating, and other desired information.

In addition to providing access to linear programming (e.g., contentthat is scheduled to be transmitted to a plurality of user equipmentdevices at a predetermined time and is provided according to aschedule), the media guidance application also provides access tonon-linear programming (e.g., content accessible to a user equipmentdevice at any time and is not provided according to a schedule).Non-linear programming may include content from different contentsources including on-demand content (e.g., VOD), Internet content (e.g.,streaming media, downloadable media, etc.), locally stored content(e.g., content stored on any user equipment device described above orother storage device), or other time-independent content. On-demandcontent may include movies or any other content provided by a particularcontent provider (e.g., HBO On Demand providing “The Sopranos” and “CurbYour Enthusiasm”). HBO ON DEMAND is a service mark owned by Time WarnerCompany L.P. et al. and THE SOPRANOS and CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM aretrademarks owned by the Home Box Office, Inc. Internet content mayinclude web events, such as a chat session or Webcast, or contentavailable on-demand as streaming content or downloadable content throughan Internet web site or other Internet access (e.g. FTP).

Grid 402 may provide media guidance data for non-linear programmingincluding on-demand listing 414, recorded content listing 416, andInternet content listing 418. A display combining media guidance datafor content from different types of content sources is sometimesreferred to as a “mixed-media” display. Various permutations of thetypes of media guidance data that may be displayed that are differentthan display 400 may be based on user selection or guidance applicationdefinition (e.g., a display of only recorded and broadcast listings,only on-demand and broadcast listings, etc.). As illustrated, listings414, 416, and 418 are shown as spanning the entire time block displayedin grid 402 to indicate that selection of these listings may provideaccess to a display dedicated to on-demand listings, recorded listings,or Internet listings, respectively. In some embodiments, listings forthese content types may be included directly in grid 402. Additionalmedia guidance data may be displayed in response to the user selectingone of the navigational icons 420. (Pressing an arrow key on a userinput device may affect the display in a similar manner as selectingnavigational icons 420.)

Display 400 may also include video region 422, and options region 426.Video region 422 may allow the user to view and/or preview programs thatare currently available, will be available, or were available to theuser. The content of video region 422 may correspond to, or beindependent from, one of the listings displayed in grid 402. Griddisplays including a video region are sometimes referred to aspicture-in-guide (PIG) displays. PIG displays and their functionalitiesare described in greater detail in Satterfield et al. U.S. Pat. No.6,564,378, issued May 13, 2003 and Yuen et al. U.S. Pat. No. 6,239,794,issued May 29, 2001, which are hereby incorporated by reference hereinin their entireties. PIG displays may be included in other mediaguidance application display screens of the embodiments describedherein.

Options region 426 may allow the user to access different types ofcontent, media guidance application displays, and/or media guidanceapplication features. Options region 426 may be part of display 400 (andother display screens described herein), or may be invoked by a user byselecting an on-screen option or pressing a dedicated or assignablebutton on a user input device. The selectable options within optionsregion 426 may concern features related to program listings in grid 402or may include options available from a main menu display. Featuresrelated to program listings may include searching for other air times orways of receiving a program, recording a program, enabling seriesrecording of a program, setting program and/or channel as a favorite,purchasing a program, or other features. Options available from a mainmenu display may include search options, VOD options, parental controloptions, Internet options, cloud-based options, device synchronizationoptions, second screen device options, options to access various typesof media guidance data displays, options to subscribe to a premiumservice, options to edit a user's profile, options to access a browseoverlay, or other options.

The media guidance application may be personalized based on a user'spreferences. A personalized media guidance application allows a user tocustomize displays and features to create a personalized “experience”with the media guidance application. This personalized experience may becreated by allowing a user to input these customizations and/or by themedia guidance application monitoring user activity to determine varioususer preferences. Users may access their personalized guidanceapplication by logging in or otherwise identifying themselves to theguidance application. Customization of the media guidance applicationmay be made in accordance with a user profile. The customizations mayinclude varying presentation schemes (e.g., color scheme of displays,font size of text, etc.), aspects of content listings displayed (e.g.,only HDTV or only 3D programming, user-specified broadcast channelsbased on favorite channel selections, re-ordering the display ofchannels, recommended content, etc.), desired recording features (e.g.,recording or series recordings for particular users, recording quality,etc.), parental control settings, customized presentation of Internetcontent (e.g., presentation of social media content, e-mail,electronically delivered articles, etc.) and other desiredcustomizations.

The media guidance application may allow a user to provide user profileinformation or may automatically compile user profile information. Themedia guidance application may, for example, monitor the content theuser accesses and/or other interactions the user may have with theguidance application. Additionally, the media guidance application mayobtain all or part of other user profiles that are related to aparticular user (e.g., from other web sites on the Internet the useraccesses, such as www.Tivo.com, from other media guidance applicationsthe user accesses, from other interactive applications the useraccesses, from another user equipment device of the user, etc.), and/orobtain information about the user from other sources that the mediaguidance application may access. As a result, a user can be providedwith a unified guidance application experience across the user'sdifferent user equipment devices. This type of user experience isdescribed in greater detail below in connection with FIG. 7. Additionalpersonalized media guidance application features are described ingreater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No.2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005, Boyer et al., U.S. Pat. No.7,165,098, issued Jan. 16, 2007, and Ellis et al., U.S. PatentApplication Publication No. 2002/0174430, filed Feb. 21, 2002, which arehereby incorporated by reference herein in their entireties.

Another display arrangement for providing media guidance is shown inFIG. 5. Video mosaic display 500 includes selectable options 502 forcontent information organized based on content type, genre, and/or otherorganization criteria. In display 500, television listings option 504 isselected, thus providing listings 506, 508, 510, and 512 as broadcastprogram listings. In display 500 the listings may provide graphicalimages including cover art, still images from the content, video clippreviews, live video from the content, or other types of content thatindicate to a user the content being described by the media guidancedata in the listing. Each of the graphical listings may also beaccompanied by text to provide further information about the contentassociated with the listing. For example, listing 508 may include morethan one portion, including media portion 514 and text portion 516.Media portion 514 and/or text portion 516 may be selectable to viewcontent in full-screen or to view information related to the contentdisplayed in media portion 514 (e.g., to view listings for the channelthat the video is displayed on).

The listings in display 500 are of different sizes (i.e., listing 506 islarger than listings 508, 510, and 512), but if desired, all thelistings may be the same size. Listings may be of different sizes orgraphically accentuated to indicate degrees of interest to the user orto emphasize certain content, as desired by the content provider orbased on user preferences. Various systems and methods for graphicallyaccentuating content listings are discussed in, for example, Yates, U.S.Patent Application Publication No. 2010/0153885, filed Nov. 12, 2009,which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Users may access content and the media guidance application (and itsdisplay screens described above and below) from one or more of theiruser equipment devices. FIG. 6 shows a generalized embodiment ofillustrative user equipment device 600. More specific implementations ofuser equipment devices are discussed below in connection with FIG. 7.User equipment device 600 may receive content and data via input/output(hereinafter “I/O”) path 602. I/O path 602 may provide content (e.g.,broadcast programming, on-demand programming, Internet content, contentavailable over a local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN),and/or other content) and data to control circuitry 604, which includesprocessing circuitry 606 and storage 608. Control circuitry 604 may beused to send and receive commands, requests, and other suitable datausing I/O path 602. I/O path 602 may connect control circuitry 604 (andspecifically processing circuitry 606) to one or more communicationspaths (described below). I/O functions may be provided by one or more ofthese communications paths, but are shown as a single path in FIG. 6 toavoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Control circuitry 604 may be based on any suitable processing circuitrysuch as processing circuitry 606. As referred to herein, processingcircuitry should be understood to mean circuitry based on one or moremicroprocessors, microcontrollers, digital signal processors,programmable logic devices, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs),application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), etc., and may includea multi-core processor (e.g., dual-core, quad-core, hexa-core, or anysuitable number of cores) or supercomputer. In some embodiments,processing circuitry may be distributed across multiple separateprocessors or processing units, for example, multiple of the same typeof processing units (e.g., two Intel Core i7 processors) or multipledifferent processors (e.g., an Intel Core i5 processor and an Intel Corei7 processor). In some embodiments, control circuitry 604 executesinstructions for a media guidance application stored in memory (i.e.,storage 608). Specifically, control circuitry 604 may be instructed bythe media guidance application to perform the functions discussed aboveand below. For example, the media guidance application may provideinstructions to control circuitry 604 to generate the media guidancedisplays. In some implementations, any action performed by controlcircuitry 604 may be based on instructions received from the mediaguidance application.

In client-server based embodiments, control circuitry 604 may includecommunications circuitry suitable for communicating with a guidanceapplication server or other networks or servers. The instructions forcarrying out the above mentioned functionality may be stored on theguidance application server. Communications circuitry may include acable modem, an integrated services digital network (ISDN) modem, adigital subscriber line (DSL) modem, a telephone modem, Ethernet card,or a wireless modem for communications with other equipment, or anyother suitable communications circuitry. Such communications may involvethe Internet or any other suitable communications networks or paths(which is described in more detail in connection with FIG. 7). Inaddition, communications circuitry may include circuitry that enablespeer-to-peer communication of user equipment devices, or communicationof user equipment devices in locations remote from each other (describedin more detail below).

Memory may be an electronic storage device provided as storage 608 thatis part of control circuitry 604. As referred to herein, the phrase“electronic storage device” or “storage device” should be understood tomean any device for storing electronic data, computer software, orfirmware, such as random-access memory, read-only memory, hard drives,optical drives, digital video disc (DVD) recorders, compact disc (CD)recorders, BLU-RAY disc (BD) recorders, BLU-RAY 3D disc recorders,digital video recorders (DVR, sometimes called a personal videorecorder, or PVR), solid state devices, quantum storage devices, gamingconsoles, gaming media, or any other suitable fixed or removable storagedevices, and/or any combination of the same. Storage 608 may be used tostore various types of content described herein as well as mediaguidance data described above. Nonvolatile memory may also be used(e.g., to launch a boot-up routine and other instructions). Cloud-basedstorage, described in relation to FIG. 7, may be used to supplementstorage 608 or instead of storage 608.

Control circuitry 604 may include video generating circuitry and tuningcircuitry, such as one or more analog tuners, one or more MPEG-2decoders or other digital decoding circuitry, high-definition tuners, orany other suitable tuning or video circuits or combinations of suchcircuits. Encoding circuitry (e.g., for converting over-the-air, analog,or digital signals to MPEG signals for storage) may also be provided.Control circuitry 604 may also include scaler circuitry for upconvertingand downconverting content into the preferred output format of the userequipment 600. Circuitry 604 may also include digital-to-analogconverter circuitry and analog-to-digital converter circuitry forconverting between digital and analog signals. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may be used by the user equipment device to receive and todisplay, to play, or to record content. The tuning and encodingcircuitry may also be used to receive guidance data. The circuitrydescribed herein, including for example, the tuning, video generating,encoding, decoding, encrypting, decrypting, scaler, and analog/digitalcircuitry, may be implemented using software running on one or moregeneral purpose or specialized processors. Multiple tuners may beprovided to handle simultaneous tuning functions (e.g., watch and recordfunctions, picture-in-picture (PIP) functions, multiple-tuner recording,etc.). If storage 608 is provided as a separate device from userequipment 600, the tuning and encoding circuitry (including multipletuners) may be associated with storage 608.

A user may send instructions to control circuitry 604 using user inputinterface 610. User input interface 610 may be any suitable userinterface, such as a remote control, mouse, trackball, keypad, keyboard,touch screen, touchpad, stylus input, joystick, voice recognitioninterface, or other user input interfaces. Display 612 may be providedas a stand-alone device or integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600. For example, display 612 may be a touchscreen ortouch-sensitive display. In such circumstances, user input interface 610may be integrated with or combined with display 612. Display 612 may beone or more of a monitor, a television, a liquid crystal display (LCD)for a mobile device, amorphous silicon display, low temperature polysilicon display, electronic ink display, electrophoretic display, activematrix display, electro-wetting display, electrofluidic display, cathoderay tube display, light-emitting diode display, electroluminescentdisplay, plasma display panel, high-performance addressing display,thin-film transistor display, organic light-emitting diode display,surface-conduction electron-emitter display (SED), laser television,carbon nanotubes, quantum dot display, interferometric modulatordisplay, or any other suitable equipment for displaying visual images.In some embodiments, display 612 may be HDTV-capable. In someembodiments, display 612 may be a 3D display, and the interactive mediaguidance application and any suitable content may be displayed in 3D. Avideo card or graphics card may generate the output to the display 612.The video card may offer various functions such as accelerated renderingof 3D scenes and 2D graphics, MPEG-2/MPEG-4 decoding, TV output, or theability to connect multiple monitors. The video card may be anyprocessing circuitry described above in relation to control circuitry604. The video card may be integrated with the control circuitry 604.Speakers 614 may be provided as integrated with other elements of userequipment device 600 or may be stand-alone units. The audio component ofvideos and other content displayed on display 612 may be played throughspeakers 614. In some embodiments, the audio may be distributed to areceiver (not shown), which processes and outputs the audio via speakers614.

The guidance application may be implemented using any suitablearchitecture. For example, it may be a stand-alone applicationwholly-implemented on user equipment device 600. In such an approach,instructions of the application are stored locally (e.g., in storage608), and data for use by the application is downloaded on a periodicbasis (e.g., from an out-of-band feed, from an Internet resource, orusing another suitable approach). Control circuitry 604 may retrieveinstructions of the application from storage 608 and process theinstructions to generate any of the displays discussed herein. Based onthe processed instructions, control circuitry 604 may determine whataction to perform when input is received from input interface 610. Forexample, movement of a cursor on a display up/down may be indicated bythe processed instructions when input interface 610 indicates that anup/down button was selected.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is a client-serverbased application. Data for use by a thick or thin client implemented onuser equipment device 600 is retrieved on-demand by issuing requests toa server remote to the user equipment device 600. In one example of aclient-server based guidance application, control circuitry 604 runs aweb browser that interprets web pages provided by a remote server. Forexample, the remote server may store the instructions for theapplication in a storage device. The remote server may process thestored instructions using circuitry (e.g., control circuitry 604) andgenerate the displays discussed above and below. The client device mayreceive the displays generated by the remote server and may display thecontent of the displays locally on equipment device 600. This way, theprocessing of the instructions is performed remotely by the server whilethe resulting displays are provided locally on equipment device 600.Equipment device 600 may receive inputs from the user via inputinterface 610 and transmit those inputs to the remote server forprocessing and generating the corresponding displays. For example,equipment device 600 may transmit a communication to the remote serverindicating that an up/down button was selected via input interface 610.The remote server may process instructions in accordance with that inputand generate a display of the application corresponding to the input(e.g., a display that moves a cursor up/down). The generated display isthen transmitted to equipment device 600 for presentation to the user.

In some embodiments, the media guidance application is downloaded andinterpreted or otherwise run by an interpreter or virtual machine (runby control circuitry 604). In some embodiments, the guidance applicationmay be encoded in the ETV Binary Interchange Format (EBIF), received bycontrol circuitry 604 as part of a suitable feed, and interpreted by auser agent running on control circuitry 604. For example, the guidanceapplication may be an EBIF application. In some embodiments, theguidance application may be defined by a series of JAVA-based files thatare received and run by a local virtual machine or other suitablemiddleware executed by control circuitry 604. In some of suchembodiments (e.g., those employing MPEG-2 or other digital mediaencoding schemes), the guidance application may be, for example, encodedand transmitted in an MPEG-2 object carousel with the MPEG audio andvideo packets of a program.

User equipment device 600 of FIG. 6 can be implemented in system 700 ofFIG. 7 as user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704,wireless user communications device 706, or any other type of userequipment suitable for accessing content, such as a non-portable gamingmachine. For simplicity, these devices may be referred to hereincollectively as user equipment or user equipment devices, and may besubstantially similar to user equipment devices described above. Userequipment devices, on which a media guidance application may beimplemented, may function as a standalone device or may be part of anetwork of devices. Various network configurations of devices may beimplemented and are discussed in more detail below.

A user equipment device utilizing at least some of the system featuresdescribed above in connection with FIG. 6 may not be classified solelyas user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, or awireless user communications device 706. For example, user televisionequipment 702 may, like some user computer equipment 704, beInternet-enabled allowing for access to Internet content, while usercomputer equipment 704 may, like some television equipment 702, includea tuner allowing for access to television programming. The mediaguidance application may have the same layout on various different typesof user equipment or may be tailored to the display capabilities of theuser equipment. For example, on user computer equipment 704, theguidance application may be provided as a web site accessed by a webbrowser. In another example, the guidance application may be scaled downfor wireless user communications devices 706.

In system 700, there is typically more than one of each type of userequipment device but only one of each is shown in FIG. 7 to avoidovercomplicating the drawing. In addition, each user may utilize morethan one type of user equipment device and also more than one of eachtype of user equipment device.

In some embodiments, a user equipment device (e.g., user televisionequipment 702, user computer equipment 704, wireless user communicationsdevice 706) may be referred to as a “second screen device.” For example,a second screen device may supplement content presented on a first userequipment device. The content presented on the second screen device maybe any suitable content that supplements the content presented on thefirst device. In some embodiments, the second screen device provides aninterface for adjusting settings and display preferences of the firstdevice. In some embodiments, the second screen device is configured forinteracting with other second screen devices or for interacting with asocial network. The second screen device can be located in the same roomas the first device, a different room from the first device but in thesame house or building, or in a different building from the firstdevice.

The user may also set various settings to maintain consistent mediaguidance application settings across in-home devices and remote devices.Settings include those described herein, as well as channel and programfavorites, programming preferences that the guidance applicationutilizes to make programming recommendations, display preferences, andother desirable guidance settings. For example, if a user sets a channelas a favorite on, for example, the web site www.Tivo.com on theirpersonal computer at their office, the same channel would appear as afavorite on the user's in-home devices (e.g., user television equipmentand user computer equipment) as well as the user's mobile devices, ifdesired. Therefore, changes made on one user equipment device can changethe guidance experience on another user equipment device, regardless ofwhether they are the same or a different type of user equipment device.In addition, the changes made may be based on settings input by a user,as well as user activity monitored by the guidance application.

The user equipment devices may be coupled to communications network 714.Namely, user television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, andwireless user communications device 706 are coupled to communicationsnetwork 714 via communications paths 708, 710, and 712, respectively.Communications network 714 may be one or more networks including theInternet, a mobile phone network, mobile voice or data network (e.g., a4G or LTE network), cable network, public switched telephone network, orother types of communications network or combinations of communicationsnetworks. Paths 708, 710, and 712 may separately or together include oneor more communications paths, such as, a satellite path, a fiber-opticpath, a cable path, a path that supports Internet communications (e.g.,IPTV), free-space connections (e.g., for broadcast or other wirelesssignals), or any other suitable wired or wireless communications path orcombination of such paths. Path 712 is drawn with dotted lines toindicate that in the exemplary embodiment shown in FIG. 7 it is awireless path and paths 708 and 710 are drawn as solid lines to indicatethey are wired paths (although these paths may be wireless paths, ifdesired). Communications with the user equipment devices may be providedby one or more of these communications paths, but are shown as a singlepath in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Although communications paths are not drawn between user equipmentdevices, these devices may communicate directly with each other viacommunication paths, such as those described above in connection withpaths 708, 710, and 712, as well as other short-range point-to-pointcommunication paths, such as USB cables, IEEE 1394 cables, wirelesspaths (e.g., Bluetooth, infrared, IEEE 802-11x, etc.), or othershort-range communication via wired or wireless paths. BLUETOOTH is acertification mark owned by Bluetooth SIG, INC. The user equipmentdevices may also communicate with each other directly through anindirect path via communications network 714.

System 700 includes content source 716 and media guidance data source718 coupled to communications network 714 via communication paths 720and 722, respectively. Paths 720 and 722 may include any of thecommunication paths described above in connection with paths 708, 710,and 712. Communications with the content source 716 and media guidancedata source 718 may be exchanged over one or more communications paths,but are shown as a single path in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating thedrawing. In addition, there may be more than one of each of contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718, but only one of each isshown in FIG. 7 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing. (The differenttypes of each of these sources are discussed below.) If desired, contentsource 716 and media guidance data source 718 may be integrated as onesource device. Although communications between sources 716 and 718 withuser equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 are shown as throughcommunications network 714, in some embodiments, sources 716 and 718 maycommunicate directly with user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 viacommunication paths (not shown) such as those described above inconnection with paths 708, 710, and 712.

Content source 716 may include one or more types of content distributionequipment including a television distribution facility, cable systemheadend, satellite distribution facility, programming sources (e.g.,television broadcasters, such as NBC, ABC, HBO, etc.), intermediatedistribution facilities and/or servers, Internet providers, on-demandmedia servers, and other content providers. NBC is a trademark owned bythe National Broadcasting Company, Inc., ABC is a trademark owned by theAmerican Broadcasting Company, Inc., and HBO is a trademark owned by theHome Box Office, Inc. Content source 716 may be the originator ofcontent (e.g., a television broadcaster, a Webcast provider, etc.) ormay not be the originator of content (e.g., an on-demand contentprovider, an Internet provider of content of broadcast programs fordownloading, etc.). Content source 716 may include cable sources,satellite providers, on-demand providers, Internet providers,over-the-top content providers, or other providers of content. Contentsource 716 may also include a remote media server used to storedifferent types of content (including video content selected by a user),in a location remote from any of the user equipment devices. Systems andmethods for remote storage of content, and providing remotely storedcontent to user equipment are discussed in greater detail in connectionwith Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 7,761,892, issued Jul. 20, 2010, whichis hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

Media guidance data source 718 may provide media guidance data, such asthe media guidance data described above. Media guidance data may beprovided to the user equipment devices using any suitable approach. Insome embodiments, the guidance application may be a stand-aloneinteractive television program guide that receives program guide datavia a data feed (e.g., a continuous feed or trickle feed). Programschedule data and other guidance data may be provided to the userequipment on a television channel sideband, using an in-band digitalsignal, using an out-of-band digital signal, or by any other suitabledata transmission technique. Program schedule data and other mediaguidance data may be provided to user equipment on multiple analog ordigital television channels.

In some embodiments, guidance data from media guidance data source 718may be provided to users' equipment using a client-server approach. Forexample, a user equipment device may pull media guidance data from aserver, or a server may push media guidance data to a user equipmentdevice. In some embodiments, a guidance application client residing onthe user's equipment may initiate sessions with source 718 to obtainguidance data when needed, e.g., when the guidance data is out of dateor when the user equipment device receives a request from the user toreceive data. Media guidance may be provided to the user equipment withany suitable frequency (e.g., continuously, daily, a user-specifiedperiod of time, a system-specified period of time, in response to arequest from user equipment, etc.). Media guidance data source 718 mayprovide user equipment devices 702, 704, and 706 the media guidanceapplication itself or software updates for the media guidanceapplication.

In some embodiments, the media guidance data may include viewer data.For example, the viewer data may include current and/or historical useractivity information (e.g., what content the user typically watches,what times of day the user watches content, whether the user interactswith a social network, at what times the user interacts with a socialnetwork to post information, what types of content the user typicallywatches (e.g., pay TV or free TV), mood, brain activity information,etc.). The media guidance data may also include subscription data. Forexample, the subscription data may identify to which sources or servicesa given user subscribes and/or to which sources or services the givenuser has previously subscribed but later terminated access (e.g.,whether the user subscribes to premium channels, whether the user hasadded a premium level of services, whether the user has increasedInternet speed). In some embodiments, the viewer data and/or thesubscription data may identify patterns of a given user for a period ofmore than one year. The media guidance data may include a model (e.g., asurvivor model) used for generating a score that indicates a likelihooda given user will terminate access to a service/source. For example, themedia guidance application may process the viewer data with thesubscription data using the model to generate a value or score thatindicates a likelihood of whether the given user will terminate accessto a particular service or source. In particular, a higher score mayindicate a higher level of confidence that the user will terminateaccess to a particular service or source. Based on the score, the mediaguidance application may generate promotions that entice the user tokeep the particular service or source indicated by the score as one towhich the user will likely terminate access.

Media guidance applications may be, for example, stand-aloneapplications implemented on user equipment devices. For example, themedia guidance application may be implemented as software or a set ofexecutable instructions which may be stored in storage 608, and executedby control circuitry 604 of a user equipment device 600. In someembodiments, media guidance applications may be client-serverapplications where only a client application resides on the userequipment device, and server application resides on a remote server. Forexample, media guidance applications may be implemented partially as aclient application on control circuitry 604 of user equipment device 600and partially on a remote server as a server application (e.g., mediaguidance data source 718) running on control circuitry of the remoteserver. When executed by control circuitry of the remote server (such asmedia guidance data source 718), the media guidance application mayinstruct the control circuitry to generate the guidance applicationdisplays and transmit the generated displays to the user equipmentdevices. The server application may instruct the control circuitry ofthe media guidance data source 718 to transmit data for storage on theuser equipment. The client application may instruct control circuitry ofthe receiving user equipment to generate the guidance applicationdisplays.

Content and/or media guidance data delivered to user equipment devices702, 704, and 706 may be over-the-top (OTT) content. OTT contentdelivery allows Internet-enabled user devices, including any userequipment device described above, to receive content that is transferredover the Internet, including any content described above, in addition tocontent received over cable or satellite connections. OTT content isdelivered via an Internet connection provided by an Internet serviceprovider (ISP), but a third party distributes the content. The ISP maynot be responsible for the viewing abilities, copyrights, orredistribution of the content, and may only transfer IP packets providedby the OTT content provider. Examples of OTT content providers includeYOUTUBE, NETFLIX, and HULU, which provide audio and video via IPpackets. Youtube is a trademark owned by Google Inc., Netflix is atrademark owned by Netflix Inc., and Hulu is a trademark owned by Hulu,LLC. OTT content providers may additionally or alternatively providemedia guidance data described above. In addition to content and/or mediaguidance data, providers of OTT content can distribute media guidanceapplications (e.g., web-based applications or cloud-based applications),or the content can be displayed by media guidance applications stored onthe user equipment device.

Media guidance system 700 is intended to illustrate a number ofapproaches, or network configurations, by which user equipment devicesand sources of content and guidance data may communicate with each otherfor the purpose of accessing content and providing media guidance. Theembodiments described herein may be applied in any one or a subset ofthese approaches, or in a system employing other approaches fordelivering content and providing media guidance. The following fourapproaches provide specific illustrations of the generalized example ofFIG. 7.

In one approach, user equipment devices may communicate with each otherwithin a home network. User equipment devices can communicate with eachother directly via short-range point-to-point communication schemesdescribed above, via indirect paths through a hub or other similardevice provided on a home network, or via communications network 714.Each of the multiple individuals in a single home may operate differentuser equipment devices on the home network. As a result, it may bedesirable for various media guidance information or settings to becommunicated between the different user equipment devices. For example,it may be desirable for users to maintain consistent media guidanceapplication settings on different user equipment devices within a homenetwork, as described in greater detail in Ellis et al., U.S. PatentPublication No. 2005/0251827, filed Jul. 11, 2005. Different types ofuser equipment devices in a home network may also communicate with eachother to transmit content. For example, a user may transmit content fromuser computer equipment to a portable video player or portable musicplayer.

In a second approach, users may have multiple types of user equipment bywhich they access content and obtain media guidance. For example, someusers may have home networks that are accessed by in-home and mobiledevices. Users may control in-home devices via a media guidanceapplication implemented on a remote device. For example, users mayaccess an online media guidance application on a website via a personalcomputer at their office, or a mobile device such as a PDA orweb-enabled mobile telephone. The user may set various settings (e.g.,recordings, reminders, or other settings) on the online guidanceapplication to control the user's in-home equipment. The online guidemay control the user's equipment directly, or by communicating with amedia guidance application on the user's in-home equipment. Varioussystems and methods for user equipment devices communicating, where theuser equipment devices are in locations remote from each other, isdiscussed in, for example, Ellis et al., U.S. Pat. No. 8,046,801, issuedOct. 25, 2011, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein in itsentirety.

In a third approach, users of user equipment devices inside and outsidea home can use their media guidance application to communicate directlywith content source 716 to access content. Specifically, within a home,users of user television equipment 702 and user computer equipment 704may access the media guidance application to navigate among and locatedesirable content. Users may also access the media guidance applicationoutside of the home using wireless user communications devices 706 tonavigate among and locate desirable content.

In a fourth approach, user equipment devices may operate in a cloudcomputing environment to access cloud services. In a cloud computingenvironment, various types of computing services for content sharing,storage or distribution (e.g., video sharing sites or social networkingsites) are provided by a collection of network-accessible computing andstorage resources, referred to as “the cloud.” For example, the cloudcan include a collection of server computing devices, which may belocated centrally or at distributed locations, that provide cloud-basedservices to various types of users and devices connected via a networksuch as the Internet via communications network 714. These cloudresources may include one or more content sources 716 and one or moremedia guidance data sources 718. In addition or in the alternative, theremote computing sites may include other user equipment devices, such asuser television equipment 702, user computer equipment 704, and wirelessuser communications device 706. For example, the other user equipmentdevices may provide access to a stored copy of a video or a streamedvideo. In such embodiments, user equipment devices may operate in apeer-to-peer manner without communicating with a central server.

The cloud provides access to services, such as content storage, contentsharing, or social networking services, among other examples, as well asaccess to any content described above, for user equipment devices.Services can be provided in the cloud through cloud computing serviceproviders, or through other providers of online services. For example,the cloud-based services can include a content storage service, acontent sharing site, a social networking site, or other services viawhich user-sourced content is distributed for viewing by others onconnected devices. These cloud-based services may allow a user equipmentdevice to store content to the cloud and to receive content from thecloud rather than storing content locally and accessing locally-storedcontent.

A user may use various content capture devices, such as camcorders,digital cameras with video mode, audio recorders, mobile phones, andhandheld computing devices, to record content. The user can uploadcontent to a content storage service on the cloud either directly, forexample, from user computer equipment 704 or wireless usercommunications device 706 having content capture feature. Alternatively,the user can first transfer the content to a user equipment device, suchas user computer equipment 704. The user equipment device storing thecontent uploads the content to the cloud using a data transmissionservice on communications network 714. In some embodiments, the userequipment device itself is a cloud resource, and other user equipmentdevices can access the content directly from the user equipment deviceon which the user stored the content.

Cloud resources may be accessed by a user equipment device using, forexample, a web browser, a media guidance application, a desktopapplication, a mobile application, and/or any combination of accessapplications of the same. The user equipment device may be a cloudclient that relies on cloud computing for application delivery, or theuser equipment device may have some functionality without access tocloud resources. For example, some applications running on the userequipment device may be cloud applications, i.e., applications deliveredas a service over the Internet, while other applications may be storedand run on the user equipment device. In some embodiments, a user devicemay receive content from multiple cloud resources simultaneously. Forexample, a user device can stream audio from one cloud resource whiledownloading content from a second cloud resource. Or a user device candownload content from multiple cloud resources for more efficientdownloading. In some embodiments, user equipment devices can use cloudresources for processing operations such as the processing operationsperformed by processing circuitry described in relation to FIG. 6.

As referred herein, the term “in response to” refers to initiated as aresult of. For example, a first action being performed in response to asecond action may include interstitial steps between the first actionand the second action. As referred herein, the term “directly inresponse to” refers to caused by. For example, a first action beingperformed directly in response to a second action may not includeinterstitial steps between the first action and the second action.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for changing a recordingpriority of a media asset using a continuous listening device, inaccordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. For example, a mediaguidance application may instruct control circuitry 604 to execute theelements of process 800.

Process 800 begins at 802, where the media guidance application receives(e.g., via control circuitry 606), from a continuous-listening device(e.g., user input interface 610), an audio clip of an utterance of auser. The audio clip may have been recorded while thecontinuous-listening device was in a passive listening state. Forexample, the media guidance application may receive the audio clip ofutterance 106 from continuous listening device 110 over communicationslink 112 as described in relation to FIG. 1.

Process 800 continues to 804, where the media guidance applicationinputs (e.g., via control circuitry 606) the audio clip into a naturallanguage understanding process. For example, the media guidanceapplication may input the audio clip of utterance 106 into a naturallanguage processing accessed from memory (e.g., storage 608), or maytransmit the audio clip to a remote server (e.g., media guidance datasource 718) for processing, as discussed in relation to FIG. 1).

Process 800 continues to 806, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via control circuitry 606), as an output of the naturallanguage understanding process, a data structure containing a firstplurality of words. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive, from the remote server (e.g., media guidance data source 718),the data structure containing the words “I,” “love,” “Tyrion,” and“Lannister” corresponding to utterance 106 as described in relation toFIG. 1.

Process 800 continues to 808, where the media guidance applicationretrieves (e.g., via control circuitry 606), from memory (e.g., storage608), a data structure indicating a media asset currently stored orscheduled to be stored on a storage device associated with the user. Forexample, the media guidance application may access data structure 202indicating media asset 212 from memory as described in relation to FIG.2.

Process 800 continues to 810, wherein the media guidance applicationextracts (e.g., via control circuitry 606), from the data structure, anindication of the media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may extract, by executing an SQL script utilizing thedeclarative “Select” command, the title of media asset 212 from programinformation field 204 of data structure 202 as described in relation toFIG. 2.

Process 800 continues to 812, where the media guidance applicationtransmits (e.g., via control circuitry 606), to a database (e.g., tomedia guidance application data source 718 over communications network714), a data packet containing a query for a plurality of keywordsassociated with the media asset. For example, the media guidanceapplication may transmit, to the database, a request for keywords 222 asdescribed in relation to FIG. 2 above.

Process 800 continues to 814, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via control circuitry 606 from media guidance datasource 718 over communications network 718) a data packet containing theplurality of keywords associated with the media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may receive a data packet containing keywords222 as described in relation to FIG. 2 above. The data packet mayinclude the entirety of data structure 202 as described in relation toFIG. 2 as well.

Process 800 continues to 816, where the media guidance applicationextracts (e.g., via control circuitry 606), from the data packet, theplurality of keywords associated with the media asset. For example, themedia guidance application may extract, by executing an SQL scriptutilizing the declarative “Select” command, keywords 222 from the datapacket, which may contain data structure 202, as described in relationto FIG. 2.

Process 800 continues to 818, where the media guidance applicationcompares (e.g., via control circuitry 606) the first plurality of wordsto the plurality of keywords associated with the media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may compare “I,” “love,”“Tyrion” and “Lannister,” to the keywords “Blackwater,” “Wildfire,”“Battle,” “Stannis,” “Baratheon,” “Tyrion,” “Joffry,” “Cersei,” “Tywin,”“Lannister,” “Kings,” “Landing,” “Red,” and “Keep” (e.g., keywords 222of FIG. 2).

Process 800 continues to 820, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) if there is a match betweenthe first plurality of words and the plurality of keywords indicatingthat the user was discussing the media asset. If the media guidanceapplication determines that there is not a match between the firstplurality of words and the plurality of keywords indicating that theuser was discussing the media asset, process 800 continues to 822, wherethe media guidance application determines (e.g., via control circuitry606) if there are additional media assets on the storage device. Forexample, if the media guidance application determines that there is nota match between the keywords associated with a second media asset (e.g.,the eighth episode of the second season of “Bob's Burgers” entitled “BadTina”), the media guidance application may determine if there areadditional media assets to check. If the media guidance applicationdetermines that there are additional media assets on the storage device,process 800 returns to 808, where a new data structure indicating a newmedia asset is retrieved. For example, the media guidance applicationmay retrieve (e.g., via control circuitry 606 from storage 618) the datastructure indicating “Blackwater” as described above. If the mediaguidance application determines that there are no additional mediaassets on the storage device, process 800 continues to 834, whereprocess 800 ends.

If, at 820, the media guidance application determines that there is amatch between the first plurality of words and the plurality of keywordsindicating that the user was discussing the media asset, process 800continues to 824, where the media guidance application stores (e.g., viacontrol circuitry 606 in storage 608) in a user profile associated withthe user, a first indication that the user was discussing the mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may store in a userprofile associated with user 102 a first indication that user 102 wasdiscussing “Blackwater” as described in relation to FIG. 1 above.

Process 800 continues to 826 where the media guidance applicationsearches (e.g., via control circuitry 606) the user profile forindications that the user was discussing the media asset. For example,the media guidance application may search the user profile associatedwith user 102 for indications that user 102 was discussing “Blackwater”as described in relation to FIG. 1 above, and as described in moredetail below in relation to FIG. 12.

Process 800 continues to 828 where the media guidance applicationretrieves (e.g., via control circuitry 606 from storage 608), from theuser profile, at least one indication that the user was discussing themedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve,from the user profile associated with user 102, five indications thatuser 102 was discussing “Blackwater” as described above in relation toFIG. 1.

Process 800 continues to 830, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) whether a measure of atotal number of indications that the user was discussing the media assetmeets a threshold measure. For example, the media guidance applicationmay compare (e.g., via control circuitry 606) the measure of the totalnumber of indications that user 102 discussed “Blackwater,” which may besix times (the five indications that user 102 discussed “Blackwater”plus the first indication that the user discussed “Blackwater” in theaudio clip of utterance 106) to a threshold measure of the userdiscussing the media asset six to ten times. If the media guidanceapplication determines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) that themeasure does not meet the threshold measure, process 800 continues to834, where process 800 ends.

If, at 830, the media guidance application determines (e.g., via controlcircuitry 606) that the measure meets the threshold measure, process 800continues to 832, where the media guidance application updates (e.g.,via control circuitry 606) a priority, associated with recording, of themedia asset to a first priority at the storage device associated withthe user. For example, the media guidance application may update thepriority to “Must Have” as described in relation to FIG. 1, and asdescribed in more detail below in relation to FIG. 12. Process 800continues to 834, where process 800 ends.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining whether toinclude an audio clip in a measure of how many times a user discussed amedia asset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Forexample, a media guidance application may instruct control circuitry 604to execute the elements of process 900.

Process 900 begins at 902, where the media guidance application receives(e.g., via control circuitry 606), from a continuous-listening device,an audio clip of an utterance of a first user. The audio clip may havebeen recorded while the continuous-listening device was in a passivelistening state. For example, the media guidance application mayreceive, from continuous listening device 110 over communications link112, an audio clip of utterance 108 of user 104, as described inrelation to FIG. 1.

Process 900 continues to 904, where the media guidance applicationcompares (e.g., via control circuitry 606) the audio clip to a pluralityof audio signatures (e.g., stored in storage 608) in an audio signaturedatabase that associates each of the plurality of audio signatures witha respective user of the plurality of users. For example, the mediaguidance application may compare the audio clip of utterance 108 to theplurality of audio signatures, as described above in relation to FIG. 1in relation to including only audio clips that contain recognized voicesin the measure of the total number of indications that user 102 wasdiscussing the first media asset.

Process 900 continues to 906, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) whether the audio clipmatches any of the plurality of audio signatures. If the media guidanceapplication determines that the audio clip does not match any of theplurality of audio signatures, process 900 continues to 908, where themedia guidance application determines (e.g., via control circuitry 606)not to include the audio clip in determining a measure of a total numberof indications that a second user was discussing the media asset. Forexample, if the first user was the mail man, his voice may not beregistered in the plurality of audio signatures, and thus the audio clipreceived from the mail man may not be included in the measure of a totalnumber of indications that user 102 was discussing the media asset, asdescribed above in relation to FIG. 1.

If, at 906, the media guidance application determines that the audioclip does match with one of the plurality of audio signatures, process900 continues to 910, where the media guidance application accesses(e.g., via control circuitry 606 from storage 608) a relationship graph.For example, the relationship graph may indicate relationships betweenthe first user and a plurality of users, and a second user and aplurality of users.

Process 900 continues to 912, where the media guidance applicationdetermines whether the relationship graph indicates a link between thefirst user and a second user. For example, the media guidanceapplication may determine whether a link exists between user 104 anduser 102 in the relationship graph, as described in relation to FIG. 1above.

If the media guidance application determines that a link does not existbetween the first user and the second user (e.g., user 102 and user104), process 900 continues to 908, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) not to include the audioclip in determining a measure of a total number of indications that asecond user was discussing the media asset. If, instead, at 912, themedia guidance application determines that a link exists between thefirst user and the second user, process 900 continues to 914, where themedia guidance application searches (e.g., via control circuitry 606) auser profile (e.g., stored in storage 608) of the first user forindications that the first user was discussing the media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may search the user profileassociated with user 104 for indications that the first user wasdiscussing “Blackwater,” as described above in relation to FIG. 1 and asdescribed in further detail below in FIG. 11.

Process 900 continues to 916, where the media guidance applicationincludes (e.g., via control circuitry 606), in a measure of a totalnumber of indications that a second user was discussing the media asset,the indications that the second user was discussing the media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may include a fraction of thetotal number of indications that user 104 was discussing “Blackwater”(e.g., one fourth of four indications) in a measure of a total number ofindications that user 102 was discussing the media asset (e.g., toincrease the measure from six to seven) as described above in relationto FIG. 1.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for determining a thresholdmeasure, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure. Forexample, a media guidance application may instruct control circuitry 604to execute the elements of process 1000.

Process 1000 begins at 1002, where the media guidance applicationsearches (e.g., via control circuitry 606) a user profile of a user forindications that the user was discussing a second media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may search for indications thatthe user discussed the thirteenth episode of the fourth season of theseries “Breaking Bad,” entitled “Face Off,” as described above inrelation to FIG. 3 and determining the average measure, and as describedin more detail below in FIG. 11.

Process 1000 continues to 1004, where the media guidance applicationsearches (e.g., via control circuitry 606) the user profile of the userfor indications that the user was discussing a third media asset. Forexample, the media guidance application may search for indications thatthe user discussed the eighth episode of the second season of “Bob'sBurgers” entitled “Bad Tina” as described above in relation to FIG. 3and determining the average measure, as described in more detail belowin FIG. 11.

Process 1000 continues to 1006, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) a first measure of a totalnumber of indications that the user was discussing the second mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe first measure is ten, as described above in relation to FIG. 3.

Process 1000 continues to 1008, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) a second measure of a totalnumber of indications that the user was discussing the third mediaasset. For example, the media guidance application may determine thatthe second measure is two, as described above in relation to FIG. 3.

Process 1000 continues to 1010, where the media guidance applicationcalculates (e.g., via control circuitry 606) an average measure based onan average of the first measure and the second measure. For example, themedia guidance application may determine that the average measure is anaverage of the first measure, the second measure, and a plurality ofmeasures, which may be six, as described above in relation to FIG. 3.

Process 1000 continues to 1012, where the media guidance applicationassociates (e.g., via control circuitry 606) in a data structure, theaverage measure with a threshold measure. For example, the mediaguidance application may associate the average measure with the third ofinstances measures 304 in table 302, as described in relation to FIG. 3.

Process 1000 continues to 1014, where the media guidance applicationstores (e.g., via control circuitry 606 in storage 608), in the userprofile, the data structure. For example, the media guidance applicationmay store, in the user profile of user 102, table 302 associatinginstances measures 304 with recording priorities 310 and deletionpriorities 312 as described in relation to FIG. 3 above.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for searching forindications that a user was discussing a media asset, in accordance withsome embodiments of the disclosure. For example, a media guidanceapplication may instruct control circuitry 604 to execute the elementsof process 1100.

Process 1100 begins at 1102, where the media guidance applicationreceives (e.g., via control circuitry 606 over communications network714) a request to search for indications that a user was discussing amedia asset. For example, the media guidance application may receive aquery identifying a user (e.g., user 102) and a media asset (e.g.,“Blackwater”) and a request to search for indications that the user wasdiscussing the media asset.

Process 1100 continues to 1104, where the media guidance applicationaccesses (e.g., via control circuitry 606) from a database (e.g., mediaguidance data source 718 or storage 608), a user profile associated withthe user. For example, the media guidance application may query thedatabase for the user profile associated with user 102, as describedabove in relation to FIG. 1.

Process 1100 continues to 1106, where the media guidance applicationretrieves (e.g., via control circuitry 606 from storage 608) a pluralityof data structure. Each data structure may represent a respectiveindication of a plurality of indications that the user was discussing arespective media asset of a plurality of media assets. For example, themedia guidance application may retrieve four data structures. A firstdata structure may indicate that the user was discussing “Blackwater,” asecond data structure may indicate that the user was discussing “BadTina,” a third data structure may indicate that the user was discussing“Face Off,” and a fourth data structure may indicate that the user wasdiscussing “Blackwater.”

Process 1100 continues to 1108, where the media guidance applicationaccesses (e.g., via control circuitry 606) a field of each of theplurality of data structures indicating the respective media asset ofthe plurality of media assets to determine which of the plurality ofdata structures represents an indication that the user was discussingthe media asset. For example, the media guidance application may accessa field of the first data structure indicating “Blackwater,” a field ofthe second data structure indicating “Bad Tina,” a field of the thirddata structure indicating “Face Off,” and a field of the fourth datastructure indicating “Blackwater.” The media guidance application maydetermine that the first data structure and the fourth data structurehave a field indicating “Blackwater” by comparing the media asset in therequest to search for indication that the user was discussing“Blackwater,” and thus determine that the first data structure and thefourth data structure represent an indication that the user wasdiscussing “Blackwater.”

FIG. 12 is a flowchart of illustrative steps for updating a priority ofa media asset, in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.For example, a media guidance application may instruct control circuitry604 to execute the elements of process 1200.

Process 1200 begins at 1202, where the media guidance applicationaccesses (e.g., via control circuitry 606), from a storage deviceassociated with the user (e.g., storage 608 of user television equipment702), a first data structure associating a media asset with a firstpriority. For example, the media guidance application may retrieve datastructure 202 from memory, which associated media asset 212 with oldpriority 218 of “Delete First” as described in relation to FIG. 2.

Process 1200 continues to 1204, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) that a measure of a totalnumber of indications that the user was discussing the media asset meetsa threshold measure. For example, the media guidance application maydetermine that the measure of 11 meets a threshold measure of greaterthan ten, as described above in 830 of process 800 in FIG. 8.

Process 1200 continues to 1206, where the media guidance applicationdetermines (e.g., via control circuitry 606) a second priorityassociated with the measure based on determining that the measure meetsthe threshold measure. For example, the media guidance application mayaccess table 302 to determine that the threshold measure meets thefourth of instances thresholds 304, and determine that the fourth ofdeletion priorities 310, “Must Have,” is associated with the thresholdmeasure of greater than ten as they are in the same row of table 302, asdescribed above in relation to FIG. 3.

Process 1200 continues to 1208, where the media guidance applicationreplaces (e.g., via control circuitry 606), in the first data structure,the first priority with the second priority to create a second datastructure associating the media asset with the second priority. Forexample, the media guidance application may replace old priority 218with new priority 220 in data structure 202 indicating media asset 212,which may be the second priority of “Must Have,” thereby creating thesecond data structure associating media asset 212 with new priority 220.

Process 1200 continues to 1210, where the media guidance applicationstores (e.g., via control circuitry 606), in the storage device (e.g.,storage 608 of user television equipment 702), the second datastructure. For example, the media guidance application may store datastructure 202 associating new priority 220 with media asset 212 instorage, as described above in relation to FIG. 2.

Process 1200 continues to 1212, where the media guidance applicationdeletes (e.g., via control circuitry 606), from the storage device(e.g., storage 608 of user television equipment 702), the first datastructure. For example, the media guidance application may delete datastructure 202 associating old priority 218 with media asset 212 instorage, as described above in relation to FIG. 2.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure are presentedfor purposes of illustration and not of limitation, and the presentdisclosure is limited only by the claims that follow. Additionally, itshould be noted that any of the devices or equipment discussed inrelation to FIGS. 6-7 could be used to perform one or more of the stepsin processes 800-1200 in FIGS. 8-12, respectively. Furthermore, itshould be noted that the features and limitations described in any oneembodiment may be applied to any other embodiment herein, and flowchartsor examples relating to one embodiment may be combined with any otherembodiment in a suitable manner, done in different orders, performedwith additional steps, performed with omitted steps, or done inparallel. For example, each of these steps may be performed in any orderor in parallel or substantially simultaneously to reduce lag or increasethe speed of the system or method. In addition, the systems and methodsdescribed herein may be performed in real time. It should also be notedthat the systems and/or methods described above may be applied to, orused in accordance with, other systems and/or methods.

1-51. (canceled)
 52. A method for adjusting a recording priority of amedia asset based on a conversation pertaining to the media asset, themethod comprising: parsing an utterance received at a continuouslistening device to extract a first plurality of words; determining,based on the parsing, whether the utterance comprises an instruction forthe continuous listening device; in response to determining that theutterance does not comprise the instruction for the continuous listeningdevice: identifying an indication of a media asset in a data structurecomprising (1) indications of media assets scheduled for storage in astorage device and (2) recording priorities for the media assets; andretrieving a plurality of keywords associated with the media asset;comparing the first plurality of words to the plurality of keywords todetermine whether a match exists between the first plurality of wordsand the plurality of keywords; in response to determining that a matchexists, updating, in the data structure, a recording priority of themedia asset.
 53. The method of claim 52, wherein determining whetherthere is the match comprises determining whether at least one of thefirst plurality of words matches at least one of the plurality ofkeywords, and wherein the match indicates that the utterance refers tothe media asset.
 54. The method of claim 52, further comprising:storing, in a user profile, a first indication that the utterance refersto the media asset; searching the user profile for additionalindications of utterances referring to the media asset; based onsearching the user profile, retrieving, from the user profile, at leastone additional indication of an utterance referring to the media asset;determining, based on the at least one indication, a measure of a totalnumber of indications; and updating the recording priority of the mediaasset based on the total number of indications.
 55. The method of claim54, wherein the measure of the total number of indications is afrequency at which utterances refer to the media asset, whereindetermining the measure comprises: extracting, from the at least oneindication, a first timestamp; calculating an amount of time between afirst time corresponding to the first timestamp and a second time,wherein the second time is when the utterance was received at thecontinuous listening device; and calculating the frequency based on boththe amount of time and a number of timestamps corresponding to timesbetween the first time and the second time.
 56. The method of claim 54,wherein updating the recording priority of the media asset comprises:determining whether the measure meets a threshold measure; and inresponse to determining that the measure meets the threshold measure,updating the recording priority.
 57. The method of claim 52, whereinupdating the recording priority further comprises: determining that theutterance has a negative context; storing an indication of the utterancein a user profile; determining, from the user profile, a measure of atotal number of indications of utterances referring to the media asset,wherein a first subset of the total number comprises indicationsassociated with a positive context and a second subset of the totalnumber comprises indications associated with the negative context;comparing the first subset of indications associated with the positivecontext with the second subset of indications associated with thenegative context; adjusting the recording priority based on thecomparing.
 58. The method of claim 57, wherein determining that theutterance has the negative context comprises: comparing the firstplurality of words to a negative word database, wherein the negativeword database comprises at least one data structure indicating negativewords; and determining that at least one word of the first plurality ofwords is contained in the negative word database.
 59. The method ofclaim 57, wherein determining that the utterance has the negativecontext comprises: comparing the utterance to a tone database todetermine a tone of the utterance, wherein the tone of the utterance isa non-etymological indication of whether the utterance refers to themedia asset positively or negatively; and determining that the tone ofthe utterance is a negative tone based on comparing the utterance to thetone database.
 60. The method of claim 52, wherein updating therecording priority of the media asset further comprises: storing anindication of the utterance in a user profile; determining, from theuser profile, a measure of a total number of indications of utterancesreferring to the media asset; accessing, from memory, a tableassociating a plurality of threshold measures with a plurality ofpriorities, wherein each threshold measure of the plurality of thresholdmeasures is associated with a respective priority; comparing the measureto the plurality of threshold measures; and determining, based on thecomparing, a respective priority of the plurality of priorities thatcorresponds to the threshold measure; and updating the recordingpriority to the associated priority.
 61. The method of claim 52, furthercomprising: comparing the utterance to a plurality of audio signaturesin an audio signature database to determine which of a plurality ofusers spoke in the utterance, wherein the audio signature databaseassociates each of the plurality of audio signatures with a respectiveuser of the plurality of users; in response to determining that theutterance matches an audio signature of a user from the plurality ofusers based on the comparing, retrieving the user profile of the user;and storing, in the user profile, a first indication that the utteranceof the user refers to the media asset.
 62. A system for adjusting arecording priority of a media asset based on a conversation pertainingto the media asset, the system comprising: control circuitry configuredto: parse an utterance received at a continuous listening device toextract a first plurality of words; determine, based on the parsedutterance, whether the utterance comprises an instruction for thecontinuous listening device; in response to the determination that theutterance does not comprise the instruction for the continuous listeningdevice: identify an indication of a media asset in a data structurecomprising (1) indications of media assets scheduled for storage in astorage device and (2) recording priorities for the media assets; andretrieve a plurality of keywords associated with the media asset;compare the first plurality of words to the plurality of keywords todetermine whether a match exists between the first plurality of wordsand the plurality of keywords; in response to determining that a matchexists, update, in the data structure, a recording priority of the mediaasset.
 63. The system of claim 62, wherein the control circuitry isfurther configured to determine whether there is the match bydetermining whether at least one of the first plurality of words matchesat least one of the plurality of keywords, and wherein the matchindicates that the utterance refers to the media asset.
 64. The systemof claim 62, wherein the control circuitry is further configured to:store, in a user profile, a first indication that the utterance refersto the media asset; search the user profile for additional indicationsof utterances referring to the media asset; based on the search of theuser profile, retrieve, from the user profile, at least one indicationof an utterance referring to the media asset; determine, based on the atleast one indication, a measure of a total number of indications; andupdate the recording priority of the media asset based on the totalnumber of indications.
 65. The system of claim 64, wherein the measureof the total number of indications is a frequency at which utterancesrefer to the media asset, wherein the control circuitry is furtherconfigured to determine the measure by: extracting, from the at leastone indication, a first timestamp; calculating an amount of time betweena first time corresponding to the first timestamp and a second time,wherein the second time is when the utterance was received; andcalculating the frequency based on both the amount of time and a numberof timestamps corresponding to times between the first time and thesecond time.
 66. The system of claim 64, wherein the control circuitryis further configured to update the recording priority of the mediaasset by: determining whether the measure meets a threshold measure; andin response to determining that the measure meets the threshold measure,updating the recording priority.
 67. The system of claim 62, wherein thecontrol circuitry is further configured to update the recording priorityby: determining that the utterance has a negative context; storing anindication of the utterance in a user profile; determining, from theuser profile, a measure of a total number of indications of utterancesreferring to the media asset, wherein a first subset of the total numbercomprises indications associated with a positive context and a secondsubset of the total number comprises indications associated with thenegative context; determining whether the first subset of indicationsassociated with the positive context is larger than the second subset ofindications associated with the negative context; in response todetermining that the first subset is not larger than the second subset,decreasing the recording priority; or in response to determining thatthe first subset is larger than the second subset, increasing therecording priority.
 68. The system of claim 67, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to determine that the utterance has thenegative context by: comparing the first plurality of words to anegative word database, wherein the negative word database comprises atleast one data structure indicating negative words; and determining thatat least one word of the first plurality of words is contained in thenegative word database.
 69. The system of claim 67, wherein the controlcircuitry is further configured to determine that the utterance has thenegative context by: comparing the utterance to a tone database todetermine a tone of the utterance, wherein the tone of the utterance isa non-etymological indication of whether the utterance refers to themedia asset positively or negatively; and determining that the tone ofthe utterance is a negative tone based on comparing the utterance to thetone database.
 70. The system of claim 62, wherein the control circuitryis further configured to update the recording priority of the mediaasset by: storing an indication of the utterance in a user profile;determining, from the user profile, a measure of a total number ofindications of utterances referring to the media asset; accessing, frommemory, a table associating a plurality of threshold measures with aplurality of priorities, wherein each threshold measure of the pluralityof threshold measures is associated with a respective priority;comparing the measure to the plurality of threshold measures; anddetermining, based on the comparison, a respective priority of theplurality of priorities that corresponds to the threshold measure; andupdating the recording priority to the respective priority.
 71. Thesystem of claim 62, wherein the control circuitry is further configuredto: compare the utterance to a plurality of audio signatures in an audiosignature database to determine which of a plurality of users spoke inthe utterance, wherein the audio signature database associates each ofthe plurality of audio signatures with a respective user of theplurality of users; in response to the determination that the utterancematches an audio signature of a user from the plurality of users basedon the comparing, retrieve the user profile of the user; and store, inthe user profile, a first indication that the utterance of the userrefers to the media asset.